The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered massive uncertainty in global markets and the US Federal Reserve responded by cutting interests rate to 0.25%. As investors started chasing higher-yielding investment opportunities, the somewhat–obscure concept of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) came back into the spotlight. [PDF Link]
Jardine Cycle & Carriage Professor of Finance Duan Jin-Chuan (Dept of Finance) comments on the impact of the issuance of digital banking licences on Singapore’s finance sector.
China’s efforts to formally establish a digital RMB go back to 2016, when the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) established its Digital Currency Research Institute. Key results were seen in April 2020, with the PBOC announcing pilot initiatives in several provinces and cities. The pace of development indicates that the widespread use of e-RMB is …
Will China’s digital currency accelerate the internationalisation of the RMB? Read More »
Emir Hrnjic, Head of FinTech Training and Senior Research Fellow, Asian Institute of Digital Finance, National University of Singapore discusses why so many local players have been caught out by the MAS’ decision to cease Wirecard’s services here, and whether is this an opportunity for fintechs to come up with innovative e-payment solutions.
“I’m an illiterate” would be an awkward admission in any society. Admitting one’s innumeracy, however, very much depends on the culture. My many encounters while living in North America suggest that quite a substantial segment of the population wouldn’t hesitate to say: “I’m not good at mathematics.”
News broke recently that fintech company Railsbank has agreed to acquire its competitor Wirecard UK’s remaining assets, clients, and a number of employees. Moreover, Wirecard sold its operations in Brazil and advanced the process of selling its North American operations. [PDF Link]
The Wirecard scandal has revealed that even major companies involved in online payments may be disastrously unreliable and might even enable illegal transactions such as money laundering, according to the Financial Times. [PDF Link]
I would contend that within a decade, many of us will routinely deal in digital currencies, given the strength and intensity of the economic forces unleashed by digital technologies. Money, a medium of exchange, was a necessity-driven human invention long before the advent of written history.
