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Crypto Innovators Will ‘Ultimately Have to Use a Bank to Move Funds’

Crypto innovators will ‘ultimately have to use a bank to move funds’

Crypto Innovators Will ‘Ultimately Have to Use a Bank to Move Funds’

Crypto innovators will ‘ultimately have to use a bank to move funds’

Ron Karpovich, Global Head of eCommerce Solutions at JPMorgan Chase, stated that there is “more partnership instead of competition” between the financial establishment and crypto disruptors when it comes to the payments space. Karpovich made his remarks during an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box today, March 20.

In response to a question from CNBC’s host as to how the banking giant is poised to compete with new and disruptive actors than can leverage blockchain and cryptocurrencies to offer the same services as the old guard, but with lower fees, Karpovich said:

“Ultimately behind the scenes, they [crypto innovators] are going to have to use a bank to move funds. There’s more partnership instead of competition in that space. […] When it comes to margins and capabilities — payments is never something that grows in margin, nobody wants to pay for a payment. That’s one of the hardest parts of this process: you have limited resources in the capability to sell, so you need highly efficient and large players.”

Karpovich thus attributed the high degree of “consolidation in the payments space” to this prime requirement to provide efficiency in the ability to make payments.

In his further comments, Karpovich noted that whereas blockchain could indeed revolutionize the payments industry, consumers in future may not necessarily register the transformation, as the technology may well develop into a back-end technology that simply provides cost and time efficiency to services.

With regard to JPMorgan Chase’s recently unveiled blockchain-powered JPM Coin, Karpovich dismissed the suggestion that the move represents a u-turn in the bank’s stance toward the crypto space — given CEO Jamie Dimon’s notorious antagonism toward Bitcoin (BTC) in particular:

“I think there’s a difference between trading a cryptocurrency that’s in the market that’s ubiquitous versus using the technology to enhance your payments infrastructure. We look at the technology as being a means to doing things faster and cheaper: every CEO would like to make things faster and cheaper. So from that standpoint I think it represents a buy into the concept of using blockchain.”

This, he continued, aligns with JPMorgan Chase’s ongoing initiatives, given that Karpovich considers the bank to be a “big player in the blockchain space,” citing the bank’s private blockchain platform Quorum and accompanying Quorum-based Interbank Information Network.

As reported, responses to JPM Coin have been mixed, with some hailing the development as a highly positive moment for the crypto industry as a whole, and others critiquing its proprietary and closed network structure, arguing it will perpetuate the fragmentation of the financial sector.

Published at Thu, 21 Mar 2019 06:13:53 +0000

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South Korea Moves to Regulate Domestic Bitcoin Trading, Exchanges

South Korea Moves to Regulate Domestic Bitcoin Trading, Exchanges

Since late November 2017, South Korea has looked to regulate cryptocurrency trading in domestic exchanges, including Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit,  The Korea Herald reports. Now, trying to tame the wave of wild cryptocurrency speculation in the country, South Korea is imposing trade bans for minors and looking for ways to impose taxes on investment returns.

South Korea is the world’s third largest market in bitcoin trading, after Japan and the U.S., and the largest exchange market for ether, accounting for more than 33 percent of its market share, according to a recent MIT Technology Review report. The country is also home to two of the top 15 global digital-currency exchanges (Bithumb and Coinone) and believed to have about one million registered daily traders in virtual currencies, which is equivalent to about one out of every 50 citizens.

This is worrying the South Korean government. In September 2017, the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) ordered a ban on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). In November 2017, the head of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service said that the agency was monitoring cryptocurrency trading inside the country, and the country’s National Tax Agency revealed that it was considering a value-added tax, a capital gains tax or both on cryptocurrency trades. If the plan is implemented, South Korea will become one of the few countries to tax cryptocurrency-to-cash exchanges.

The government’s concern is also motivated by the risk of cyberattacks from the country’s rogue neighbor, North Korea. According to South Korea’s National Police Agency, North Korean hackers could be targeting South Korean bitcoin exchanges.

With these newest measures, North Korean banks that offer accounts for cryptocurrency trading will have to verify the identification of new account holders and prohibit minors from opening accounts. Woori Bank and Korea Development Bank will shut down virtual accounts offered to cryptocurrency exchanges before year-end, according to the banks.

The regulators will also bar financial institutions from investing in or obtaining cryptocurrencies, and is considering ways to oblige cryptocurrency exchange operators to verify users’ real names, strengthen storage security of encryption keys, and disclose purchase price and order volumes. The authorities will also take strong-handed punitive actions against the perpetrators of cryptocurrency-related scams.

In a press release, the government said that the new regulations were necessary “to prevent a general public without expertise from suffering losses by participating in virtual currency investments that have massive fluctuations.”

These issues were discussed on Wednesday, December 13, 2017, in a meeting presided over by Hong Nam-ki, minister of the Office for Government Policy coordination, and attended by officials from the ministries of justice, finance, and science and ICT, as well as from the Financial Services Commission, the Korea Communications Commission, the Fair Trade Commission and the National Tax Service.

While some news headlines are presenting this as a catastrophic development that will shut down the cryptocurrency industry in South Korea, the initiative of the South Korean authorities is in line with current trends toward stronger cryptocurrency regulations in China, Europe and the U.S.

“A right set of regulations will rather nurture the (virtual currency) market, and we would welcome that,” Bithumb representatives told Reuters, adding that such a code of conduct could add legitimacy to the market.

The post South Korea Moves to Regulate Domestic Bitcoin Trading, Exchanges appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.