June 28, 2019

The social media giant Facebook has listed 32 job openings related to blockchain technology. The listings include programmers, financial accountants, data scientists and technology communications, according to the postings.

Facebook recently announced itsLibra cryptocurrency, which users will store on a wallet called Calibra. The job listings range from researchers to engineers to legal experts.

Congress hasrecently requested that Facebook halt development on Calibra and Libra until representatives have time to examine the products. This is due to previous privacy breaches alleged misuse by the social media company.

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Topics: Bitcoin, Mobile/Digital Wallet, Regulatory Issues, Social Media

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Fintech solutions developer OPAL IS, part of OPAL Group, has launched guidance for banks and insurers to replatform more efficiently. Based on the group’s 35 years of experience, OPAL IS has highlighted three key themes of which financial providers need to be aware before embarking on a replatforming in order to make it fast, cost effective and secure.

1. Keep innovation outside of the legacy system

Keep the build outside of the legacy system in a ring-fenced development area, don’t mix the two together from the start. At the very least take a hard look at the benefits of migration versus cost and risk. What is required is a step by step development over a period of time with measurable milestones, triggers and reactions to the market. This reduces complexity so the focus is on the immediate needs for new products. There is less customer disruption and lower cost and risk because there’s no change to the existing systems and no data migration initially.

We know that what financial providers want to do is to deliver client solutions digitally and at pace.

2. Understand what problem you’re trying to solve to manage risk

Look through the ‘right end of the telescope’ by being clear what problem are you trying to solve? Do you need a new platform or do you need to launch new, competitively priced, attractive products in the channels that customers want to buy them in? Understand how best to keep distribution channels happy, maintain customer service levels, all while testing, learning and retesting. If the focus is cost and risk management, for example, keep in mind that old, complex books of business with very low customer volumes are not a priority where the risks outweigh the benefits and the key problem is how to deliver new products digitally rather than worrying about migrating old books. In these situations, OPAL suggests a selective approach to replatforming.

3. Assemble a specialist team with a proven track record

In-house teams often struggle with the specialist needs of replatforming projects. Build a team that will focus on the three main drivers in developing digital platform solutions – flexibility, speed and quality of build. Building new digital platforms and replatforming existing data doesn’t have to be fraught with complexity and doomed to failure. It just needs to be fully assessed in advance and then broken down into practical and manageable sections, but doing it efficiently, on time and to budget only comes with experience.

Eoin Lyons, OPAL Group CEO, said: “The last year has seen plenty of headlines about the bad experiences of banks and insurers when building and migrating to new platforms. Despite a huge budget, some of the biggest names failed to deliver, leaving clients locked out of new systems and budgets overrunning.

We know that what financial providers want to do is to deliver client solutions digitally and at pace. However, they are not always clear how best to do that and we believe our three rules should be front of mind when embarking on a replatforming project.“

Public blockchain Aurora Chain has published a new feature – Upgradable Block, which brings more flexibility and utility to the public chain landscape. Developers using Aurora chain will be able to enjoy the latest features that Aurora brings and reduce cases of hard forking.

Hard forking has been a prevalent issue during the blockchain industry’s short history. Bitcoin alone has more than 6 hard forks including Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Cash. Furthermore, the already forked Bitcoin Cash forked again last year by it’s two major mining pools, creating BCHABC and BCHSV.

While hard forks can be a good way to gain attention in social media, ultimately it lowered the utility of bitcoins and undermined its mining capability. For more up-to-date and advanced blockchains, this could potentially be catastrophic. As a result, the Aurora tech team developed a solution that can reduce this risk.

The solution requires mining agents or agent candidates to vote for upgrading the blockchain within a 14 day limit. When votes for an upgrade exceeds the total number of voting agents and agent candidates, this upgrade passes and a block height will be chosen for implementing the new upgrade.

An upgrade should include URL of the version released on Github, the version code, description of the update and md5 information of the new upgrade.

When the upgrading program on the network receives an upgrading request, it will automatically retrieve the new release and proceed to verify this version. Once the verification is successful, the test network will be activated.

“This is a major step for us, we’ve been aware of the scalability issues that the industry is facing.”

Users can try this new version on the test network. If any problems or glitches occur before the implementation of the release, the agent that requested the upgrade can put the upgrade to a halt. Until the halt is revoked, the upgrade will not be carried out even if the network reaches the agreed block height.

The solution has two smart contracts and an upgrade control:

Smart contract A manages the upgrade smart contract, which is smart contract B. It can substitute the old version of the blockchain code with the new one

Smart contract B regulates the process of voting and retrieving of an upgrade. It supervises 5 major parts of the solution:

1. Agents and Agent node candidate votings
2. Other mining agents or agent candidates participating in the voting process
3. The upgrade is passed when “Yes” votes exceed 2/3 of the total number of the mining agents and agent candidates
4. The agent that requests the upgrade can halt the upgrading process in case of emergency
5. The agent that requests the upgrade can resume the upgrading process

Upgrading control has three purposes:

1. To oversee the whole network, supervise the initiation, processing, and pausing/abandoning the upgrade.
2. Monitor the communication between contract A and contract b,
3. Optimize the concurrence of Testnet and Mainnet.

Aurora chain CEO Aqua Zhao commented:

“This is a major step for us, we’ve been aware of the scalability issues that the industry is facing. Our network is already faster than most public chains, however ‘Upgradable Blockchain’ further boosts our scalability and utility.”

convAs retailers look to cut transactional costs, one startup is trying to solve that problem with direct payments from customers’ bank accounts. PayWithMyBank is working with retailers to help them accept ACH payments from customers. By using its tools, merchants save money on interchange fees and provide customers with a card-free option at checkout.  On …Read More

Fintech Alliance, a digital platform launching on 10th June to unite both the UK and the global financial technology sector, has announced a partnership with Welsh startup Delio, a private asset investment infrastructure as a service company, to power its funding feature. The deal will enable startups within the alliance’s community to access important routes to funding directly through the organisation’s website.

Fintech Alliance was announced in late April by the Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in partnership with the Department for International Trade (DIT), to bring together the strengths of the UK’s Fintech ecosystem in one destination. The platform officially launches on 10th June and is built on providing opportunity and education to those working in the Fintech sector.

One of the core missions of the Fintech Alliance is to enable the FinTech ecosystem to continue to grow across the UK. Funding plays a key role in this, and the partnership with Delio will enable the platform’s community to connect with investors and capital directly.

For both Fintechs looking for funding and for high net-worth investors looking for funding opportunities the process of using the platform is straightforward. Once registered, companies can post a project they seek to be funded, including details and relevant documents. When the project is approved, they are able to track investor engagement via a dashboard and interact directly with investors that are interested. The investment portal gives investors a truly end-to-end solution, from distribution to execution all the way through to portfolio reporting. Delio already provides its technology to companies like ING and Barclays.

One of the core missions of the Fintech Alliance is to enable the FinTech ecosystem to continue to grow across the UK.

Alastair Lukies CBE, Member of the Prime Ministers Business Council and Chair of FinTech Alliance, said: “The Alliance is here for the whole of the UK so we are thrilled to have such a prominent Welsh Fintech, Delio, on board, helping us build a crucial functionality into our platform.”

Gareth Lewis, Co-Founder and CEO, Delio, added: “At Delio, we already work with a wide range of firms to provide effective digital private market solutions. Given the importance of the UK Fintech sector, we are really excited now to provide the Fintech Alliance with our platform. Using it will help companies and investors match the best funding opportunities and, in turn, power the continued growth of UK Fintech.”

Individuals or a company can build a profile on the Fintech Alliance, where users will be able to access and share a wealth of insight and news across the platform, connect with investors, receive updates on the latest policy and regulatory changes, and find the talent they need in order to scale.

Individuals can register for free and businesses have to pay a monthly subscription or annual fee for a presence on the Fintech Alliance’s platform. The profits made by the organisation will be used to drive further initiatives and support pre-existing organisations in the UK Fintech community.