The report neglects write access
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Payments, Transfers, Rewards
Payments without banks goes mainstream with Twitter on Bitcoin Lightning Network
LinkedIn Pulse| Chris Venter | Sep 24, 2021
The Bitcoin lightning network
You can read all about it here: https://lightning.network/ but I will explain it simply.
The Lightning is built on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain. It was designed with small micro payments in mind. The lightning network is known as a layer 2 payments system because it sits on top of the Bitcoin blockchain which can be thought of as the underlying 1st layer.
See: Twitter to allow Bitcoin tipping to their favourite creators
It uses built in smart contracts to open up direct payment channels between individuals. It’s fast, efficient and has very low transaction costs that enable very tiny micropayments.
Andreas M. Antonopoulos explains the Lightning Network in this awesome video here
Mainstream adoption
On Thursday 23 September 2021, Twitter announced that their Tip Jar feature would support payment using Bitcoin via Strike’s API. Strike https://strike.me/ allows you to send and receive payments in Bitcoin. It uses the Lightning network we just spoke about.
Once this feature rolls out, any Twitter user can send money to another Twitter user using Bitcoin. The payments is immediate, fast and free.
Here comes the so what…
No Bank was involved.
No Swift payments network..
No Visa payments processing fee…
No Currency conversion and exchange rate fee….
See it in action…
Continue to the full article --> here
See:
Amazon Responds To Rumors That It Is Integrating Bitcoin Payments On Its Platform
‘Last year we saw about a 300% increase in transactions just using cryptocurrency’: Coinpayments CEO
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Upcoming Meeting: Retail Payments Advisory Committee
BoC | Aug 11, 2021
The Interim Retail Payments Advisory Committee (RPAC) is a forum set up by the Bank of Canada to gather industry expertise about the retail payment services landscape. The Bank is designing and getting ready to implement the Retail Payments Supervisory Framework.
See: Bank of Canada (Aug 13 Deadline): Retail Payment Advisory Committee is Seeking New Members
The interim committee provides advice and expertise to support the Bank of Canada’s understanding in the following areas:
- framework structure: helping the Bank of Canada understand the retail payments segment of the financial ecosystem and providing input on the Bank of Canada’s risk assessment, oversight and enforcement procedures
- operational design: offering suggestions on the framework’s overall design, including the creation of registration and reporting processes, the IT system and the website
- industry developments: raising relevant issues for discussion, identifying areas of research and considering how the Bank of Canada can best meet its proposed mandate
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Swift launches ‘Go’ moves into low value cross-border payments
Finextra | Jul 27, 2021
Banking co-operative Swift is moving into the low value remittance market with the launch of Swift Go, a service that enables consumers and small businesses to send near real-time payments anywhere in the world direct from their bank accounts.
Seven global banks - BBVA; Bank of New York Mellon; DNB; MYBank; Sberbank; Société Générale, and UniCredit - which collectively handle 33 million low-value cross-border payments per year, are already live with the service.
Using tighter service level agreements between institutions and pre-validation of data, Swift Go enables banks to provide their end customers a fast and predictable payments experience with upfront visibility on processing times and costs.
Stephen Gilderdale, chief product officer, at Swift, says:
“Swift Go is a direct response to the needs of small businesses and consumers for fast, easy, predictable, secure and competitively priced cross-border payments. Our new service will allow banks to compete effectively in one of the fastest growing segments of the payments market, delivering a seamless experience for their customers.”
See: How decentralized finance will transform business financial services – especially for SMEs
Swift is promising competitive pricing, with processing fees agreed between financial institutions upfront in order to provide customers with full transparency on costs. Pricing will be key if the correspondent banking industry is to snatch back business lost to a host of non-bank money transmitters, many of whom rely on Ripple's alternative payment rails to disburse funds.
Isabel Schmidt, head of direct clearing and asset account services products, Bank of New York Mellon, comments:
“It’s no secret that for many years consumers and small businesses have been running into varying pain points when transacting international payments. These challenges have included opaque costs and lack of certainty on how quickly funds are delivered to the final beneficiary.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Reflections on Canada’s open banking report
Paytechs of Canada | Alex Vronces | Aug 2, 2021
The report neglects write access
As expected, the advisory committee has recommended that Canada focus on implementing read access at launch and write access in a later phase of open banking. Read access lets consumers and businesses share their financial information with fintechs, while write access lets them authorize fintechs to act upon it — by opening a new bank account, for example, or moving money from one account to another. The advisory committee’s timeline suggests that we shouldn’t even begin considering write access until 2023.
This is a mistake of import. As the Competition Bureau has said, Canada will see more competition and innovation in the financial sector if we make the movement of money between financial institutions more seamless, empowering Canadians to better vote with their dollars. Write access, if done right, will make the movement of money more seamless than ever.
See: Minister Freeland releases final report with 34 recommendations on Open Banking from the Advisory committee
I’m not saying write access should be turned on at the same time read access is. The advisory committee is a sage assembly. They know that they risk getting nothing if they ask for too much. That’s why they even suggested starting with a limited scope of read access to financial information. Write access — because we’re talking about the movement of money — comes with more risk and complexity, which, according to the advisory committee, would delay the roll out of open banking.
So if now’s not a good time to consider write access, then when is?
The devil is in the (implementation) details
The first is that this is just a report and it’s still up to the federal government to act on the recommendations. Though there’s no reason to think the federal government won’t, there’s no reason to think it will. Minister Freeland’s statement in support of a “regulated, made-in-Canada system” is reassuring, but such a system can take many shapes and sizes, and promises are just promises for a sector that has seen so many go unfulfilled.
The second is that the advisory committee’s recommended timeline is looking increasingly uncertain.
For one, open banking is already behind schedule. The report was dated April, but the report was released in August. With a proposed go-live of January 2023, we should have already delivered one of the report’s foundational recommendations by now: appoint a “tsar” to work with the relevant players to make progress on the first phase of open banking.
See: Canada’s payment system needs more competition
If I had to bet, I’d say the timeline is going to look more and more uncertain as time goes on. With an impending election, we’re going to lose another few months of valuable time. On top of that, the report mentions a few things that could further delay the implementation of a “regulated, made-in-Canada system,” including “existing legislative or regulatory impediments.” As we all know, there’s no upper bound on how long legislative and regulatory change can take.
Tough practical and political choices will need to be made. The cynic in me suspects that these trade-offs will be made behind closed doors, as push comes to shove in the negotiations between banks and the government. Whether they’ll be made to open banking’s favour or detriment is to be determined.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Amazon Responds To Rumors That It Is Integrating Bitcoin Payments On Its Platform
Bitcoinist | Best Owie | Jul 27, 2021
Amazon has recently been the subject of discussion in relation to bitcoin and crypto. Rumors circulated as the weekend drew to a close that Amazon was planning on integrating bitcoin payments on its platform. The news made the rounds and the markets responded as coin prices shot up. Bitcoin price saw over 10% gains in the hours following news of the rumor breaking.
See: How is Amazon disrupting the financial services sector?
Following this, Amazon has now come forward to respond to these rumors. A spokesperson for the company told CoinDesk that the company had no plans to integrate bitcoin payments on the platform. The email correspondence confirmed to CoinDesk that the company was although interested in the space. And the e-commerce giant planned to explore the possibilities of crypto on Amazon.
Rumors Of Amazon Integrating Bitcoin And A Native Token
News had broken out that Amazon was planning to release its own token which would be used on their platform. Alongside making bitcoin payments available to shoppers and users of their services. The reports which claimed an “insider” confirmed the rumors took the market by storm. Spreading quickly throughout the crypto space.
The “source” had claimed that the directive had come from the Amazon boss himself, Jeff Bezos. And that the internet giant was planning on rolling out these features by the end of the year. Adding that the company was not just looking at the pioneer cryptocurrency, bitcoin. But coins like Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Cardano were being scoped to be added to it. After which the company planned to bring about eight of the top cryptocurrencies in the crypto market into the fold.
It won’t take long because the plans are already there, said the source. “And they have been working on them since 2019. This entire project is pretty much ready to roll.”
See: Inside Jack Dorsey’s Next Big Bet on Bitcoin, DeFi
This ended with an addition that after the top coins were integrated, Amazon will roll out its native token. Presumably, a token that would be used on the e-commerce behemoth’s platforms to pay for goods and services.
Market Reacts As Bitcoin Rumors Are Dispelled
Bitcoin price showed tremendous movement following the rumors. Prices had swelled in the hours following the rumors of the integration. But following the Amazon spokesperson denying these rumors, the price of the digital asset has turned downwards.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Visa to Acquire Currencycloud
Visa | Jennifer Scardino | Jul 22, 2021
LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 22, 2021-- Visa (NYSE: V) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Currencycloud, a global platform that enables banks and fintechs to provide innovative foreign exchange solutions for cross-border payments. The acquisition builds on an existing strategic partnership between the two companies and values Currencycloud at £700 million, inclusive of cash and retention incentives. The financial consideration will be reduced by the outstanding equity of Currencycloud that Visa already owns.
Currencycloud’s cloud-based platform offers a broad set of APIs enabling banks and financial services providers to offer currency exchange services, including real-time notifications on foreign exchange transactions, multi-currency wallets, and virtual account management. The Currencycloud platform supports nearly 500 banking and technology clients with reach in over 180 countries.
See: MazumaGo raises seed capital and is listed as “Emerging Rocket”
Currencycloud will strengthen Visa’s existing foreign exchange capabilities by extending them to better serve financial institutions, fintechs and partners while enabling new use cases and payment flows. Currencycloud will accelerate the time-to-market and improve payment transparency for clients looking to offer flexible, digital-first, international payment services that provide better visibility and control to consumers and businesses around the world.
Cross-border payments have seen significant growth due to rising demand from businesses of all sizes to engage in international trade. A recent study revealed that 43% of all small businesses conducted international trade in 2020.1 The addition of Currencycloud’s capabilities to Visa’s network will widen access to innovative international payment products that help businesses meet their cross-border needs.
“The acquisition of Currencycloud is another example of Visa executing on our network of networks strategy to facilitate global money movement,” saidColleen Ostrowski, Visa’s Global Treasurer. “Consumers and businesses increasingly expect transparency, speed and simplicity when making or receiving international payments. With our acquisition of Currencycloud, we can support our clients and partners to further reduce the pain points of cross-border payments and develop great user experiences for their customers.”
See: ‘Last year we saw about a 300% increase in transactions just using cryptocurrency’: Coinpayments CEO
“At Currencycloud, we’ve always strived to deliver a better tomorrow for all, from the smallest start-up to the global multi-nationals. Re-imagining how money flows around the global economy just got more exciting as we join Visa,” said Mike Laven, Chief Executive Officer, Currencycloud. “The combination of Currencycloud’s fintech expertise and Visa’s network will enable us to deliver greater customer value to the businesses moving money across borders.”
Currencycloud will continue their operations from their headquarters in London and will retain their current management team. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Bank of Canada (Aug 13 Deadline): Retail Payment Advisory Committee is Seeking New Members
Bank of Canada | Jul 22, 2021
Retail Payment Advisory Committee
The Retail Payment Advisory Committee is seeking new members. Find out why, who is eligible and how to apply.
In 2020, the Bank of Canada established the Retail Payments Advisory Committee (RPAC) to solicit advice and expertise from industry members of the retail payments ecosystem. The Retail Payment Activities Act received Royal Assent on June 29, 2021, and the Bank of Canada is looking for new members for RPAC.
Read more about RPAC’s mandate and their past meetings.
Responsibilities
Members will attend approximately six meetings over a 12-month period, where they will be able to:
- discuss supervisory topics
- share best practices
- raise organizational or industry concerns
- provide potential solutions
See: Bank of Canada to become new regulator of fintech companies doing payments processing
Eligibility
The Bank will choose RPAC members from a broad spectrum of the payments industry that represents different sizes, maturities and scopes. This will help the Bank gain advice and expertise from a representative selection of industry members. We invite payment service providers to submit an expression of interest to join RPAC for the upcoming term.
Deadline for submissions
Submissions will be accepted until August 13, 2021. The Bank will contact the entities selected for further information.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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