Episode 10 - 14th October 2015

Good morning, welcome to Payments Monitor, my name is Faisal Khan, today is the 14th of October 2015, some trending stories today are:

TOP STORIES

Hyperledger, a Blockchain startup who’s co-founders are based out of China and the US, just got their first big break. At Innotribe in Singapore, Hyperledger won the $50,000 Innotribe startup prize. Hyperledger is a distributed ledger that allows banks and other financial institutions to clear and settle financial transactions in real-time.

The hits just keep on coming, the US charity shop chain America’s Thrift Stores just reported a data-breach, as per a press-release, the hacks originated from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

With a recent trademark filing by LG (Lucky Goldstar) for a product called GPay, there is now speculation if the Korean company would be entering the payments market and be offering payments on its mobile devices. A quick search of the NMLS database shows no money transmitter licenses awarded to LG.

Goldman Sachs role in 1 Malaysia Development (1MDB) transactions are now being probed by the FBI and US Justice department. As you may recall 1MDB is the state development fund of Malaysia that is in trouble over its $11 Billion debt and payout to the standing Prime Minister of Malaysia.

UK Jobless rate drops to pre-crisis levels to 5.4 percent, the lowest since early 2008. The data offers some assurance that the UK economy is growing despite the global slow down and market turmoil in China.

JP Morgan Chase’s 3rd quarter earnings were mix, but there was good news on the mobile side of things. The US banking giant now reports that it has surpassed 22 Million active mobile customers.

In the early morning today, its all red on the markets, everything seems to be down as investors digest earnings.

BLOG OPINION

There is a crisis brewing in Brazil, and everyone knows about it. Bloomberg has a great 3 series article that you must read on Brazil, why it is scaring bankers and wiping out jobs. It seems nothing is going right for the 9th largest economy in the world.

STARTUP OF THE WEEK…

The startup of this week is TawiPay, started by brothers Broid (Francois and Pascal) and their friend Laurent Oberholzer, the Swiss startup is all about money transfer (i.e. remittances). They offer a very nice comparison engine, along with a data observatory for all things money transfer.

All the links referenced on this website can be accessed at faisalkhan.com/podcast. That’s all for today, my name is Faisal Khan and you’ve been listening to the Payments Monitor.