DBS-owned Indian Bank to Close Account Over Crypto-Related Activity: Report
India’s first digital bank, Digibank, is allegedly closing accounts involved in -related activity. The claim was made by Twitter user “Indian CryptoGirl” (@Desicryptohodlr) in a tweet Jan. 14.
As previously , the same Twitter user had just recently posted details of alleged anti-crypto restrictions being imposed on account holders by Kotak Mahindra Bank, private sector bank by market cap.
Both banks’ reported measures come in the context of a on domestic banks’ dealings with crypto-related businesses, which was announced by India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India () last April, taking effect in July.
According to Indian CryptoGirl’s tweet, Digibank — which is owned by Singapore-headquartered, major multinational financial services company DBS — imposed a credit freeze on her account after allegedly detecting transactions with entities identified as being virtual currency traders or brokers. The bank’s notice reportedly advised that she should henceforth be prevented from making any further deposits, and should expect to have her account closed within 30 days.
In a private comment to Cointelegraph today, Jan. 15, Indian CryptoGirl clarified:
“I’ve been a user of DBS’ Digibank for a year. Although I regularly used Kotak Mahindra Bank for my cryptocurrency transactions, I used Digibank only 7 times throughout the year. On January 14th, I received multiple messages from my twitter [sic] followers regarding an account closure notice by digibank [sic]. I checked my mailbox and found the mail myself.”
According to a screenshot of the email included in the , Digibank further allegedly stated:
“Reserve Bank of India through their public notices have warned/advised [the] public regarding risks associated with virtual currencies. We reiterated the same vide our emails dated 4th May 2018 and 2nd Aug 2019, cautioning our account holders [against] the risks associated […] and that DBS accounts and debit cards should not be used for [their] purchase or any kind of dealings.”
Commenting on the email, and in particular the bank’s alleged claim that “crypto transactions are not allowed” in India, Indian CryptoGirl told Cointelegraph:
“Banks have interpreted RBI’s guidelines as per their own convenience […] This however is tantamount to taking the law in your own hands. RBI has only prohibited banks from working with businesses offering cryptocurrency solutions and NOT individuals from trading cryptocurrencies between them.”
Yesterday’s tweet has drawn a range of responses, with some users that not only Digibank and Kotak Mahindra, but also UCO and India Bank have been restricting crypto-related activities. These claims have not been corroborated to press time.
Many used the opportunity to Indian crypto users to trade peer-to-peer () to avoid issues with banks and government authorities.
As reported, RBI’s controversial banking blockade has sparked both and petitions, some reaching the judiciary. Yet the country’s Supreme Court has repeatedly a final decision on the matter.
Despite an onslaught of negative news and endemic — including rumors the government has mulled the outright of crypto in the country — reports in late December suggested the tide could yet turn to affirm the .
Earlier this month, RBI its financial report for 2017-18, which concluded that crypto currently poses no threat to financial stability. Authorities across the country meanwhile to persistently warn the public against the risks associated with unregulated crypto investments.
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At a gathering at the Microsoft headquarters in Beijing on Thursday, with about 200 people in attendance, , the first open-source blockchain platform developed in China, announced a complete rebranding of its blockchain solution, as well as a number of other developments detailing their ambitious plans forward.
One of the revelations was the platform’s new name and brand, NEO, which in Greek means newness, novelty and youth. The developers also highlighted the strengths of their advanced smart contract code, which will support decentralized commerce, digital identities and the digitization of many different assets. This rebranding of Antshares represents a new direction for the development of China’s blockchain community.
Currently, holders of ANS can now automatically generate Antcoins (ANC) in their Antshares wallets, which will be used as gas on the platform. The ANS asset symbol will become NEO in the 3rd quarter of 2017; meanwhile, the NEO team is working on new clients and a UI for the new NEO brand.
Throughout the day, there were presentations from participants including Microsoft representatives, NEO platform developers, and founders of partner platforms. Among the select attendees were several major potential investors, industry experts and blockchain enthusiasts, as well as members of the Chinese financial and mainstream media.
Presenters at the conference included:
Da Hongfei, founder of NEO
After announcing NEO’s new brand and strategy, Da Hongfei elaborated on the future of blockchain technology, where every asset will be digitized and programmable with smart contracts. Calling for the transparency and openness of data, he introduced concepts of the “Smart Economy” and new smart contract system, and announced that he is building a new multi-chain protocol for interoperability.
Da Hongfei’s top revelations at the conference were that:
NEO is collaborating with certificate authorities in China to map real-world assets using smart contracts;
NEO has received a new patent for cross-chain distributed interoperability;
NEO’s recent new startup partners include Bancor, Agrello, Coindash, Nest Fund, and Binance, with more partner announcements to come.
Erik Zhang, Core Developer of NEO
In his presentation, Erik Zhang discussed the evolution of Smart Contracts 2.0, and explained the main differences between NEO and Ethereum. One big contrast of these competing platforms is their programming languages. Ethereum requires developers to learn to program with Solidity. Neo, on the other hand, will support almost all programming languages via a compiler, including those on Microsoft.net, Java, Kotlin, Go and Python, greatly lowering the difficulty for developers to write smart contracts. By making its programming languages more inclusive, NEO hopes to attract a larger community of developers. Zhang also explained the mechanics of the NEO Virtual Machine, its execution engine and interoperability.
Slide Of The NEO Virtual Machine
Tony Tao, CEO of NEO and Founder of Nest Fund
Based on the concept of Ethereum’s The DAO, a blockchain-based investment fund, Tony Tao is about to release a whitepaper for a similar project. Called , and built on NEO’s blockchain, this fund will make improvements on the failures of The DAO. By offering a global bounty reward for any hacker who finds bugs, Nest will be audited by a worldwide peer review, and will then release its token for decentralized investing.
Srikanth Raju, Microsoft’s G.M of Developer Experience and Evangelism for the Greater China Region
According to Mr. Raju, blockchain technology will lead us into a new digital age, displacing traditional businesses and middlemen throughout many industries. He said that Onchain (the company that founded NEO) is “one of the top 50 startup companies in China”, and offered his support for their endeavors going forward.
Mr. Han Feng, Tsinghua University I-Center
Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship at the top university in China, Tsinghua University’s I-Center focuses on the large-scale integration of technology resources. Speaking for the university’s growing interest in supporting blockchain technology, Mr. Han Feng said that current systems of commerce are “outdated and insecure,” and that the internet is ready for an upgrade to a blockchain-based operating system. Calling for a fully-automated, blockchain-based, decentralized economy, he said we can expect a digital revolution in the years to come. This will include digital currency, decentralized storage, secure smart contract codes, IoT, AI, and many more innovations.
Chen Cheng Qiang, founder and CEO of Innospace
Located in Shanghai, Innospace is a business incubation company, with office spaces, meeting spaces, cafes and living spaces. At today’s conference, Innospace CEO Chen Cheng Qiang announced a ¥200 million CNY ($29.3 million USD) incubation fund, a collaboration between his company and the NEO blockchain team. Plans for the fund include the establishment of a new blockchain space in Shanghai, combining working spaces, startup incubation and acceleration services. According to Mr. Qiang, his company plans to provide the most successful entrepreneurship acceleration services in China.
Alex Norta, founder of Agrello
Coming all the way from Estonia, Alex Norta announced that his startup will be partnering with NEO to develop smart contracts for automation, self-execution, accuracy and transparency. Powered by AI, Agrello will be a platform for non-programmers to create their own legally binding blockchain-based smart contracts. Use cases for Agrello’s tech include renting and sharing, freelance contracting, orchestrating production flows, and reducing administration costs for multinational corporations.
Adam Efrima, COO of Coindash
With offices in Israel and Shanghai, will be a social trading platform for crypto assets, offering portfolio management tools for digital asset investors. Features of the platform will include portfolio statistics and management tools, investment automation, an ICO dashboard, and insights into other traders’ successful investing strategies. In the upcoming development of Nest Fund, a blockchain-based smart fund by the developers of NEO, Coindash will offer advisory and prediction tools for Nest’s modern investors.
Mr. Zhao Chang Peng, CEO of Binance
The former CTO of OkCoin, Mr. Zhao Chang Peng is starting his own digital asset exchange, hoping to compete with platforms like Poloniex. Calling his new platform Binance, this new exchange will only deal in coin-to-coin transactions, avoiding fiat pairs and therefore avoiding Chinese regulations. In order to maintain a standard in mature digital assets, Binance will only list coins that meet its strict criteria. With a launch planned for later this year, the platform’s first traded assets will be bitcoin, ether and NEO.
From the looks, sounds, and energy of the event, NEO has built up some strong momentum going forward. They have one the top blockchain development teams in all of China, with 50 million ANS ($325 million) to support their funding needs and a growing list of partners now aligning by their side. While it may take some time to steal the spotlight from Ethereum, we are sure to see more from this platform in the months to come.
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