Libra, Facebook's forthcoming cryptocurrency, was formally announced this summer, and will be released in 2020. It's getting a lot of attention for a few reasons, including the pure fact that it comes from such a major tech company as Facebook, as well as that it appears as if it will actually have monetary backing, which some believe will lead to greater price stability.

Swipe2B the world leader in B2B payment solutions, today announced that its BatchPay solution has been chosen by construction and engineering conglomerate Doosan-Babcock to streamline and automate its Accounts Payable (AP) and supplier payments processes. 

Leading blockchain law firm, ISOLAS LLP, has continued to expand its global reach, assisting Bitso, the first exchange in Latin America to receive its full license as a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Provider in Gibraltar. 

The purpose-built DLT framework that applies to Bitso will nowensure that the custody, withdrawals, and trading of cryptocurrencies, available on the exchange’s platform, will operate within a regulated environment. 

Standardization is prolific in any digital sector and the payments world is no different. However, despite the existence and widespread adoption of global payment standards, we’ve still yet to achieve true standardization. This is a pertinent and complex issue for today’s market. But what are the complexities making interoperability such a priority? And how can we achieve harmonization in payment standards?

Innovation, globalization, fragmentation

Today, moneycorp announces it has acquired the Rochford Group, one of Australia’s largest independent treasury advisors. The purchase is moneycorp’s second major international acquisition of 2019, after the completion of its deal for Brazil's Novo Mundo.

Rochford, based in Sydney, also has a representative office in Hong Kong that will further extend moneycorp’s presence in both Australia and Hong Kong, as well as adding a range of new products for moneycorp’s customers.

Admiral Insurance, one of the largest UK insurers, has expanded its strategic partnership with Equifax, the consumer and business insights expert, to power its affordability assessment for instalment payments.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: ICS Financial Systems Limited (ICSFS), the global software and services provider for banks and financial institutions, and Oromia International Bank S.C (OIB), one of the most profitable banks in Ethiopia 1 , announce the successful implementation and go-live of ICS BANKS Universal Banking and ICS BANKS Interest Free Banking (IFB)software suites, to provide OIB customers with conventional and interest free banking services at 264 physical branches having IFB and Conventional banking services in each branch across the country.

CoinCorner’s CEO, Danny Scott, commented:

“It has been announced that Walmart has filed a patent for its own cryptocurrency - a USD-pegged stablecoin.

“Following the announcement of Facebook’s Libra in June, this news was certainly not unexpected - in fact, we expect to see more FAANG companies filing patents for their own cryptocurrencies in the coming months.

Black Knight Inc., a leading provider of software, data and analytics to the mortgage industry, announced that Anthony Jabbour, the company’s chief executive officer, has joined the 

Computop, the global payment processor, today announced Biometrics by Computop, its new PSD2 compliant biometric authentication service for online merchants and banks. With Biometrics by Computop, merchants can take over the strong customer authentication (SCA) in order to avoid banks having to run their own two factor authentication during the payment process.