UAE deepens its crypto push as Bybit wins full license and institutions move in

BNP Paribas Partners With Chinese in Digital Yuan PushThe Chinese authorities continue with their sustained efforts to promote use of the digital yuan, on this occasion by hooking up with French international banking group, BNP Paribas.According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Friday, the partnership will see BNP Paribas collaborating with the Bank of China (BOC) to promote the digital yuan to its corporate clients. The digital yuan or e-CNY is a digital representation of the Chinese sovereign currency, issued by the BOC.Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplashe-CNY system accessAs part of the arrangement, BNP Paribas China will connect into the BOCs system, accessing an e-CNY management system. The BOC has authorized ten banks in China including the four state-owned banks, all of which are domestic lenders, to deal with its digital currency business.The direct e-CNY system access enables straight-through processing, allowing BNP Paribas to offer digital wallet functionality to its corporate clients relative to the digital yuan. Essentially, the system will allow BNP Paribas China’s corporate clients to link their bank accounts with an accompanying digital wallet. Other functionality that will be enabled as a consequence includes access to smart contract applications through the m-CBDC bridge (central bank digital currency).BNP Paribas China CEO CG Lai commented on the partnership: “While this collaboration can supplement the Bank’s offline payment collection capabilities and further optimize our clients’ account structure, this also reinforced the Bank’s commitment to the China market.” Lai outlined that the bank intends to enhance customer service capabilities by pursuing digital innovation that, like in this instance, contributes to China’s economic development.Louise Zhang, Head of BNP Paribas China Transaction Banking claimed that the partnership will “provide innovative, efficient cash management and trade financing services to local and multinational clients.”CBDC developmentThere has been a lot of activity in recent years when it comes to the development of CBDCs. The central banks of most nations have carried out some level of preparatory or investigative work relative to a digital currency. However, China has been by far the leader in its development of a CBDC.The BOC first began research into a digital currency in 2014. The country’s State Council approved the development of the digital yuan in partnership with China’s commercial banks in 2017. Beyond initial development, a testing phase began in 2019 with the project known as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) system emerging as the first version of the digital yuan after a number of years of development.In 2020, the BOC began more extensive testing of the digital currency in four Chinese cities — Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xiong’an. To promote use of the currency at that time, they offered free digital yuan to residents of those cities to spend, in that way, stepping up efforts to popularize the digital currency.Last month, the administrators of the Chinese city of Xuzhou announced that it was in the process of publishing a pilot scheme which will set out a means for promoting China’s e-CNY digital currency. Also in April, the eastern city of Changshu clarified that it is gearing up to commence paying state employees in the city in e-CNY. According to an announcement made by the city’s finance bureau the civil servants will start to receive e-CNY as payment in May.

Hana Securities chooses Itcen and INF Consulting as security token platform developersSouth Korea’s major securities company, Hana Securities, has recently chosen Itcen and INF Consulting to spearhead the development of its security token offering (STO) platform. After initial discussions in July about the project, the decision to bring these main partners on board is set to accelerate the launch of Hana Securities’ STO operations.Photo by Dave Weatherall on UnsplashComprehensive STO platformItcen and INF Consulting offer a spectrum of services from conceptualizing to building platforms. Hana Securities, in collaboration with these key partners, aims to create a comprehensive platform that manages the entire lifecycle of security tokens, encompassing everything from their issuance to circulation, by the latter half of next year. Following this development, the securities company intends to create an environment that allows various asset holders to issue security tokens. Hana Securities is also poised to orchestrate the development of the broader security token ecosystem.Choi Won-young, Head of Digital Division at Hana Securities, has expressed the firm’s commitment to the seamless development of an STO market. He mentioned that Hana Securities will engage in a range of activities, including platform development, to establish itself as a frontrunner in the STO space. The company plans to engage in dialogue with various businesses to explore collaborative opportunities that promise mutual growth.Expanding collaborative networkIn its pursuit to shape the STO market, Hana Securities has expanded its collaborative network by partnering with several entities, including Oasis Business, a prop fintech startup; Print Bakery, an art-centric platform; and Danal Entertainment, a distributor of digital content. These collaborations are centered around fractional investments and the creation of security tokens backed by diverse assets, including real estate, art pieces, precious metals like gold and silver as well as mobile content. Additionally, Hana Securities is a participant in the Next Finance Initiative (NFI) consortium alongside Mirae Asset Securities and SK Telecom via the Hana Financial Group. This alliance aims to solidify the STO market’s foundation and advance STO-related ventures.In line with this development, Hana Securities also forged a partnership with Finakle, a prop-tech enterprise that runs Rebit, a platform enabling fractional investments in commercial properties. Through this partnership, Hana Securities will manage accounts for transactions and aims to further this cooperation to refine business models going forward. Finakle, on its part, will concentrate its efforts on creating products and platforms for the issuance of security tokens tied to commercial real estate.Speaking on the joint initiative, Hana Securities’ Choi highlighted the company’s plans to widen their cooperative ventures with Finakle. This strategy is aimed at developing an array of business models and enriching the pool of commercial real estate investment options available to clients.

The Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, has joined Project Guardian, a collaboration established in 2022 between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the financial sector, with an emphasis on the use of asset tokenization to improve liquidity and efficiency within financial markets.Photo by Rachel Davis on UnsplashAssessing DLT technologyIn a press release published on Nov. 8, Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz suggested that the central bank is aligned with MAS in that both central banks are interested in determining “how innovative technologies and concepts, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain, can be put to meaningful use in the financial sector.” In joining Project Guardian, the Bundesbank will take part in the Asset & Wealth Management workstream, testing an interoperable blockchain platform for tokenized and digital funds. While the German central bank has just announced details of its participation in Project Guardian, in a speech given at the Layer One Summit, an event which formed part of the Singapore Fintech Festival last week, MAS Deputy Director Leong Sing Chiong welcomed the Bundesbank, alongside the World Bank, to Project Guardian.  The MAS executive clarified that the Deutsche Bundesbank and the World Bank would join the project’s Policymaker Group. He outlined that the role of that group is to “help provide inputs on governance arrangements, guidance on how GL1 [Global Layer One] infrastructures can be developed in line with global standards, and advice on appropriate regulatory guardrails for tokenised asset transactions.” GL1 refers to an initiative that has been established to create the foundational digital infrastructure to facilitate tokenized assets. Cross-border collaborationThrough its involvement in Project Guardian, the German central bank hopes to strengthen cross-border collaboration, while at the same time, progressing matters related to the “standardisation and interoperability of digital assets.” In working towards the goal of standardization, MAS has published two comprehensive reports covering fixed income tokenization and fund tokenization. MAS believes that the use of too many individual private DLT networks is resulting in fragmentation, with a detrimental effect with regard to liquidity. Consequently, the Singaporean central bank is establishing the Guardian Wholesale Network to improve liquidity and achieve asset tokenization at scale. The network will consist of Citi, Schroders, Standard Chartered, UOB and HSBC. Additionally, it was recently announced that SBI Digital Markets, a Singapore-based affiliate company of Japan’s SBI Digital Asset Holdings (SBI DAH), intends to contribute towards greater liquidity through its involvement in a fixed income asset tokenization pilot. Meanwhile, Citi and Fidelity have developed a proof of concept for a digital foreign exchange (FX) swap, enabled within an on-chain money market fund (MMF).  Tokenization inflection pointLeong went on to claim that while nobody has succeeded yet in implementing tokenization at scale, an inflection point has been reached with regard to the use of tokenization. He added that many use cases are promising relative to tokenization but that there is a need for supporting infrastructure “to enable good use cases to scale beyond individual networks.” In the press release, Leong said that the Bundesbank’s expertise “will be invaluable as we work together to enhance liquidity and efficiency of financial markets through asset tokenisation.”