Taoping Inc, a provider of blockchain technology and smart cloud services, today announces that its wholly-owned subsidiary Taoping Digital AssetsLimited and a Kazakhstan company Aral Petroleum Capital LLP have signed a memorandum of understanding ("MOU") to establish a joint venture in Kazakhstan, of which TDAA and APC will own 51% and 49%, respectively. TDAA will control the board of directors of the joint venture.

APC is an oil and gas exploration and development company operating in Kazakhstan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CaspianEnergy Inc. It holds an exclusive license which entitles it to explore and develop certain oil and gas properties known as the "North Block", an area of 1,916 square km, and a production contract for the area known as "East Zhagabulak". With a strong industry position and integration experience, APC is able to ensure high-quality utility-scale electricity supply at a low cost to the joint venture.

The joint venture plans to invest and build cryptocurrency mining sites with a total capacity of 100MW, the first stage construction of 30 MW is expected to complete within three to six months. TDAA will have the priority to deploy cryptocurrency mining machines owned by TDAA or its partners. The joint venture will carry out operation and maintenance of cryptocurrency mining machines in Kazakhstan. In addition, the joint venture plans to rent out excess operating capacity to third parties for additional income.

On April 15, 2021, the Company announced that it has signed a Bitcoin mining machine purchase agreement with Bitmain Technologies Limited for the purchase of Antminer S19j Pro Bitcoin mining machines with a total hash rate of 300,000 TH/s. TAOP plans to deliver these mining machines to Kazakhstan for deployment once the construction of the mining sites is completed.

"We continue to look for global opportunities that can bring business growth. With year-round cool temperatures, low real estate and labor costs, and relatively low energy prices, Kazakhstan is becoming a crypto mining hub that currently ranks 3rd in the world in terms of hash rate power," said Mr. Jianghuai Lin, Chairman and CEO of TAOP, "We are working actively to capture current unique opportunity of the rapidly changing cryptocurrency mining environment to create value for shareholders."

Commenting on the news the limit on contactless payment will rise to £100, Matt Phillips, VP, Head of Financial Services at Diebold Nixdorf UK&I, says:

“The increase to the contactless payment limit emboldens the industry’s commitment to giving consumers choice over how they pay - whether that be by cash, card, wallet or contactless. It ensures that digital progression reflects the needs of the market.

“It represents timely action from the industry after the pandemic heightened appetite for contactless, as customers desired safety and efficiency when shopping. This move will widen the consumer usage of contactless payments while keeping a limit that protects their account. Any move that improves the service for customers, while enabling the digital evolution of the UK banking industry is a positive step, and a trend that we hope to see continue across the sector.”

To date, AllianceBlock has launched a number of working products, and has sealed partnerships and collaborations with leading players including Chainlink, Hedera Hashgraph, Ava Labs, Avalanche and the London Stock Exchange Group Partner Platform

AllianceBlock, the chain-agnostic protocol building compliant and data-driven products that improve the DeFi industry and enable financial institutions to access opportunities in decentralized finance, has today unveiled a new technical roadmap. The highly anticipated roadmap outlines the upcoming milestones that will bring AllianceBlock’s vision of bridging the gap between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi) closer by remedying issues that exist in both spheres and linking the two worlds of finance together. 

AllianceBlock is building the next-generation of financial infrastructure through an interplay of products designed to accelerate and galvanise the DeFi industry, as well as improve the current state of the traditional financial industry. Under AllianceBlock’s new technical roadmap, the company will release a comprehensive product suite that will contribute to the company’s vision of creating the comprehensive, financial infrastructure of tomorrow. In the past twelve months, the team has released innovative solutions including decentralized interoperability, white label liquidity mining campaigns and trustless user identification. These products have already been extended to some of the world’s top protocols including Ethereum, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain and Elrond in a series of partnerships as well as strategic collaborations. 

Rachid Ajaja, CEO and Co-founder of AllianceBlock, said, “We pride ourselves on being the first users of our own solutions. As DeFi veterans, we’ve spotted real challenges in the industry and used our product development to actively address them. At the same time, in the past 12 months we have seen monumental changes in institutional attitudes towards the digital asset industry from all facets of the global financial system and beyond. While the winds have changed, what the industry is still lacking is a stable channel to enable banks to trade digital assets legally, safely, securely, and in a fully compliant manner. That’s where AllianceBlock steps in. The release of our technical roadmap marks a new phase in our journey to bridge decentralized and traditional finance. Our team deals in real-world solutions, not just theory and we look forward to reaching new milestones, launching new products and upgrades, and making our vision a reality over the coming months.”

The products and milestones laid out in AllianceBlock’s technical roadmap are designed specifically to address the challenges faced by projects operating at the new intersection of traditional and decentralised finance. To counteract these challenges, AllianceBlock has designed a unique product suite, consisting of three layers: the DeFi Layer, the Data Layer and the Regulatory and Compliance Layer.

1. In the DeFi Layer AllianceBlock offers cross-chain interoperability with AllianceBlock Bridge, white label liquidity campaigns with AllianceBlock LMaaS (Liquidity Mining as a Service) and aims to reduce impermanent loss for traders with AllianceBlock DEX.  Additionally, AllianceBlock Fundrs gives users access to a peer-to-peer lending protocol with a comprehensive data analytics dashboard for use in DeFi strategizing through AllianceBlock Terminal, the “Bloomberg of DeFi”.

2. In the Data Layer, AllianceBlock helps DeFi projects and traditional finance players to monetise and leverage mass amounts of data they produce through the AllianceBlock Data Tunnel.

3. In the Regulatory and Compliance Layer, AllianceBlock enables DeFi projects, protocols and DEXes to introduce scalable compliance frameworks that help them grow with regulation and open doors to institutional players to participate into DeFi with AllianceBlock TIDV (Trustless Identity Verification) and the AllianceBlock Cross-Border Regulatory Compliance Rules Engine.

DeFi projects need access to new liquidity and investment opportunities which AllianceBlock will provide through its LMaaS, AllianceDEX, and Fundrs offerings. At the same time, the industry cannot compromise on KYC compliance. AllianceBlock addresses this through its Trustless IDentity Verification (TIDV) framework. Once DeFi operates in this way, it will invite vast investment from traditional financial institutions. DeFi projects of all sizes will be able to benefit from decentralised and scalable interoperability through AllianceBridge, which will also serve as the connector between AllianceBlock’s partners, clients and extensive product suite. Finally, the vast amounts of valuable data they produce will be leveraged via the AllianceBlock Data Tunnel.

A range of products from the three-layer product suite will be released over the next 12 months. The full roadmap can be viewed here.

Matthijs de Vries, CTO and Co-founder of AllianceBlock, said, “With years of first-hand experience, our team knows the barriers traditional financial institutions are facing when it comes to accessing DeFi. We have built a protocol and supporting products aimed at empowering legacy financial institutions by solving those problems and providing compliant access to innovative DeFi investment opportunities. We know that traditional finance has standards. Our goal is to build these DeFi products with those standards built in, so players can save time, money, and increase efficiency without the need to worry about compliance. Our plan is ambitious, but so are we. We look forward to reaching new milestones and bringing our roadmap to life.”

The AllianceBlock vision has always been clear: to create a new generation of infrastructure providing the best of both worlds via a compliant gateway between centralised and decentralised finance. Led by an unrivalled leadership team experienced in traditional finance, DeFi, technology and software development, the company has been making huge strides in cementing its position as a hallmark player in the DeFi industry over the past three years through partnerships and collaborations with leading players including Chainlink, Hedera Hashgraph, Ava Labs, Avalanche, Elrond, Ocean Protocol, Injective Protocol, Orion Protocol, Edgeware, and many more, as well as joining the London Stock Exchange Group Partner Platform. AllianceBlock’s technology is being developed and leveraged by Devraaj, a technology and professional services provider.

For more information, visit https://allianceblock.io/ 

Rachid Ajaja, CEO and Co-Founder of AllianceBlock, and Matthijs de Vries, CTO and Co-founder of AllianceBlock are available for interview.

Honest Bank is building a credit product for the Indonesian market.

Digital Horizon Venture Fund invested in a Singapore fintech company Honest Bank during its series A round. The company raised a total of $19.7 million; the round was led by Insignia Ventures Partners and Digital Horizon VC. Digital Horizon invested $5.5 million.

Honest Bank aims to become a leader of the credit card market in South-East Asia. The project got off the ground in Indonesia where only 3% of the population have credit cards. Previously, the Honest Bank founders worked for investment banks, fintech-focused venture funds, and the Big Four firms. One of them, Peter Panas, led the Apple Card launch at Goldman Sachs. Another co-founder, Will Ongkowidjaja, founded Alpha JWC Ventures - a leading VC in Indonesia with a fintech focus.

The funding raised during the round will be used to receive a licence for credit card issuing. Honest Bank also plans to increase their headcount and open new offices in Bangkok and Jakarta.

“Although Honest Bank is a young company, we see that their team is able to achieve the declared goal - to build a new fintech giant in the Southeast Asian market. The share of online shopping is growing in this region, but there are still not enough modern technological credit products. Honest Bank may become an Asian Nubank,” says Alan Vaksman, the Founder and Managing Partner at Digital Horizon.

WNS, a global Business Process Management (BPM) company, today announced the formal launch of the Business Transformation After the Digital Tipping Point survey report in partnership with market research firm Corinium Global Intelligence. The survey respondents included more than 100 digital transformation leaders across organizations in North America, Europe, and Australia, gauging their priorities, challenges, and progress in their digital business transformation journey.

According to the respondents, the COVID-19 pandemic has both expanded and accelerated digital transformation initiatives. These include the optimizing and automation of both client-facing and back-office business processes, and the migration of data, applications and services to the cloud. 

“90 percent of enterprises that didn’t accelerate their digital transformations in response to the pandemic have lost business as a result,” said Keshav R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS. “Clearly, advancing the digital agenda is ‘the’ priority in the new normal, with a focus on building AI and analytics-powered tools, capabilities and business models. WNS is a key strategic partner for organizations looking to drive true business transformation by deploying unique digitally led strategies, models, accelerators and critical skills.”

The study also highlights how the levels of digital adoption vary across industry verticals. While 28 percent of leaders stated that digital is now part of their company’s DNA, 30 percent are still in the process of scaling up successful digital transformation pilots.

In addition, enterprises are increasingly focusing on AI, data-driven approaches and analytics, and social media intelligence to fuel their digital transformations, specifically to optimize customer experience – a high-priority area. However, our survey also finds that many enterprises still lack the strong data governance and cybersecurity foundations required to take advantage of leading-edge digital technologies. 

Tinkoff has been recognised for its innovative banking solutions as the Most Innovative Digital Bank in Central and Eastern Europe at Global Finance magazine’s 2021 World’s Best Digital Banks awards.

In 2020, Tinkoff unveiled its AI Banking strategy that aims to transform its customer offering through personalisation with the help of artificial intelligence across all products and services. 

To that end, Tinkoff has expanded the use of AI across its financial and lifestyle services to provide tailored advice, interface personalisation, automation of repetitive financial tasks and interactive content that drives engagement and improves the customer experience. 

Oliver Hughes, CEO of Tinkoff Group, commented:

“We are honoured to be recognised at the World’s Best Digital Banks awards for the seventh consecutive year. Tinkoff places tech innovation at the forefront of its efforts to revolutionise financial services. Winning this nomination is a testament to the innovation that makes the Russian tech industry a leader on the global stage, with Tinkoff being a significant contributor to this success.”

Winning banks were selected based on the following criteria: strength of strategy

for attracting and servicing digital customers, success in getting clients to use digital offerings, growth of digital customers, breadth of product offerings, evidence of tangible benefits gained from digital initiatives, and web/mobile site design and functionality.

The winners were chosen from entries evaluated by a world-class panel of judges at Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, and outsourcing. The editors of Global Finance were responsible for the final selection of all winners.

Joseph D. Giarraputo, publisher and editorial director of Global Finance, commented:

“With the global pandemic forcing people to conduct their personal and professional banking activities from their phones, tablets and computers, digital banking took on an importance and prevalence far beyond anything that had come before. Banks were forced to respond to this drastically altered landscape, and those that met the challenge most successfully are being honored as Global Finance’s World’s Best Digital Banks 2021.”

Commenting on the ECB meeting and revised forward guidance on interest rates, Shane O’Neill, Head of Interest Rates at Validus Risk Management, said: “There was increased anticipation for today’s meeting minutes release. The ECB’s chief economist, Philip Lane, downplayed the economic threat posed by the delta variant and committed to the PEPP program continuing until at least March 2022, and the ECB’s role in QE continuing beyond that – the result, somewhat counter-intuitively, was a large move higher in yields. German yields have their largest one day move since March.

“There was one key take away for the markets, and this was the revised forward guidance on interest rates. ECB members, led by Lane, have reformulated the forward guidance on interest rates to include three main points: inflation should reach target well in advance of projection horizon; the governing council should be confident that inflation is present on a durable basis; and rates should not be hiked unless underlying inflation was also judged to have made satisfactory progress towards 2%.

“Immediate market reaction was very subdued – EURUSD and 10y yields virtually unchanged on the release. This does, however, seem like positive news for risk assets – the ECB has in effect built in a buffer to allow them to keep conditions extremely accommodative even in the face of rising inflation, as long as they perceive it as transitory. Assets negatively effected by rising inflation could come under pressure due to this rewording but as that seems a long way off in Europe, as opposed to the US for example, the accommodative nature of the change should win out and provide support to EUR risk assets. Though far from groundbreaking, these minutes seem additive to the risk on moves seen over the last couple of days and attention will now switch to the September ECB meeting for any further developments on the PEPP programme and its future.”

Accounting software provider and SKU-level data expert provide increased visibility into business finances, improving customer experiences

Sensibill, the only customer data platform that enriches SKU-level data specifically for the financial services industry, and FreeAgent, provider of cloud accounting software for small businesses and accountants, announced their partnership today, supporting more than 110,000 business customers to better manage their business expenses. The two award-winning companies will help small businesses and accountants automate and organize their finances, accounting, and taxes.

FreeAgent recognized their business customers needed a simple, user-friendly alternative to manual-based administrative activities, such as receipt management. These businesses wanted more automation, allowing them to spend more time running their businesses instead of managing the back-end operations. This partnership removes two common pain points:1) reconciling receipts with statements continues to be time-consuming for businesses; and 2) manually organizing and filing receipts requires too much effort.

Understanding the problems small businesses face in day-to-day expense management and receipt tracking, the two companies partnered to offer a more comprehensive solution. Leveraging Sensibill’s technology within the FreeAgent solution in a new feature called Auto Extract, small businesses can capture, organize, and categorize their receipts, attaching them to corresponding bank transactions. This ultimately makes receipts significantly easier to find and reference. By extracting data from receipts, Sensibill and FreeAgent are reducing errors from manual entries, providing greater visibility and accuracy behind purchases while helping alleviate the stress of tax season.

Roan Lavery, CEO and Co-founder of FreeAgent, said, “Automation is at the center of our business, which is why partnering with Sensibill was a natural choice. Through this partnership - which powers our new Auto Extract feature - we aim to increase customer satisfaction and engagement, while making the lives of our small business customers and accountant partners much easier. It’s great to be working alongside Sensibill to help businesses get back to pursuing their passions - without all of the administrative hassles.”

Danny Piangerelli, Chief Technology Officer of Sensibill, added, “By joining forces with FreeAgent, we’re eliminating the time and money businesses have traditionally spent manually entering data into clunky and cumbersome spreadsheets and systems. Instead, we’re delivering item-level details that enable faster, better expense management. Our combined technologies make it possible for these businesses and accountants to take care of their business, anywhere and anytime. Together, we are arming small businesses with the right tools to run their businesses with more efficiency, speed, and accuracy – something that has never been more important than in the current climate.”

This week, CNBC broke an investigative story which discussed the many Coinbase users who have fallen victims to hackers, mostly without recourse. Coinbase is known for its historic public offering, as well as its place as an industry leader in the emerging digital assets space. Those interviewed noted that the company’s customer service was lackluster, at best. Coinbase boasts a market cap of roughly $65 billion, as well as a user base of more than 68 million across the globe.

“Brand trust is everything in an emerging industry. Coinbase quickly came out, and it is the most notable of the exchanges, but people are starting to learn that bigger isn’t always better in fintech or finance. Remember, a few years back, when there was a massive push by consumers to leave the big behemoths and transition to local banks and credit unions? In the case of exchanges, there’s even more to consider than solely fee structure and customer service,” opined Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

“One of the things that most people don’t think about when choosing a digital asset exchange is that technology is far more important than when choosing, for comparison’s sake, a banking institution. If your bank doesn’t have a robust mobile banking offering, while it may be inconvenient, it won’t affect the security of your money. Your checking account is still backed by the FDIC, and banks will work to track down and rectify fraudulent purchases. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets are a completely different kind of asset class,” said Gardner.

“When looking at choosing your digital asset exchange, their commitment to security is critical, particularly during a time where an operation’s security apparatus is not well defined or regulated in most jurisdictions. While bureaucracy is beginning to catch up with technology, one of the biggest strategic differentiators between exchanges is in their commitment to security and compliance. Is your exchange engaging every avenue to create a safe haven for your assets? Did they build their technology stack to get to market quickly, or did they build it to stand the test of time? Security matters, even more than speed and latency. Certainly, it is more important than how well their marketing department has signed on new users. Being the biggest isn’t an indication of anything more than that, likely, the company was well capitalized among the early players,” said Gardner.

Since 2016, Coinbase users have filed over 11,000 complaints with the FTC and CFPB. “We’ve seen, time and again, that some of the biggest regional players have been hacked or otherwise involved in malfeasance. There’s just no substitute for a well-run operation, which is focused on building technology that can withstand external threats, regardless of size,” said Gardner.

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable exchanges, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“Granted, in many cases, we’re talking about individual users or computers being hacked. That’s not, in and of itself, the fault of Coinbase. But, I think moving forward, it is incumbent on exchange providers to supply education to their customer base. That’s, ultimately, what’s going to keep them successful. Many people are getting into digital assets for the first time. Those people need some handholding to make sure that they’re following industry best practices so that they aren’t the target of nefarious actors,” offered Gardner.