Cross-border Financial News

China's Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing and the European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova held in-depth talks on Monday on topics including artificial intelligence and cross-border data flow in Beijing, China's state media reported. Both sides agreed to promote an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for the development of the digital economy, the official Xinhua news agency said.

reality. India, as chair of the G20, has sensibly pressed for finding ways to enhance international tax transparency in real estate. The outcome is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) outlining a robust framework to track tax evaders using real estate deals to hide their undeclared incomes.

Sheikh Hasina held a wide-ranging dialogue on Friday to strengthen cross-border connectivity across sectors, including commerce. «Had productive deliberations with PM Sheikh Hasina. The progress in India-Bangladesh relations in the last 9 years has been very gladdening,» Modi tweeted after the nearly hour-long meeting with Hasina, as part of the bilateral a day ahead of the G20 summit in Delhi.

Bangladesh on Friday following dialogue between their Prime Ministers signed three MoUs including one between NPCI International Payments Limited and Bangladesh Bank to enhance commercial ties. MoU between Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) on cooperation in agricultural research and education envisages exchange of scientists, scientific equipments, scientific literature,germplasm and breeding material, sources said. The MoU will be implemented through development of biennial Work Plans to be developed jointly. It also envisages setting up of a Joint Working Group from both countries that will meet once in two years in New Delhi and Dhaka. There was a renewal of MoU on Cultural Exchange Program (CEP) for 2023-2025.

Reserve Bank Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar on Tuesday said the current system cannot make cross-border payments cheaper despite the advancement in technology, and policymakers will have to show «willingness» to make it happen. Regretting that commissions of over 6 per cent are charged in retail cross-border payments, Sankar said the current banking correspondent-based system cannot yield success on this front. Countries have a robust domestic payments system like the unified payments interface in the Indian context, which makes it technologically possible to make cross-border payments seamless and cheap, Sankar said while speaking at the Global Fintech Fest here. «I think it is a question of willingness.

Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has touted Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as a solution to 'high cost, low speed' cross-border payments. 

New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said that cross-border payments can be made more efficient through adoption of digital currencies. “The empirical data that we are generating would go a long way in shaping the policies and future course of action. With its instant settlement feature, I believe, CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) can play an important role in making cross-border payments cheaper, faster and more secure," he said at the G20 TechSprint 2023.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das highlighted the need for bringing in solutions to tackle the key challenges to existing cross border payments including high cost, low speed, limited access and insufficient transparency. To this, the governor of India's central bank suggested that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) can play an important role in making cross-border payments cheaper, faster and more secure. «Faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more inclusive cross-border payment services would deliver widespread benefits to people and economies worldwide.

The Digital Dollar Project is the brainchild of former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo, ex-CFTC chief innovation officer Daniel Gorfine and Pure Storage CEO Charles Giancarlo, who have set up a not-for-profit to encourage research and public discussion about a CBDC.The project worked with Western Union, BDO Unibank in the Philippines, and Accenture on the latest pilot, designing and configuring a platform using DLT to simulate the payments infrastructure necessary to transfer digital dollars to Philippine pesos. The partners say that they saw reduced counterparty and credit risk thanks to instant settlement.

Coast Guard (ICG) and its Bangladesh counterpart BCG was held on Monday, an official said.

Roshni Nadar Malhotra, chairperson of HCL technologies, said in the national capital on Saturday. Speaking at a B20 panel on technology, innovation and R&D, she said, “One of the issues with global technology and skilling is that innovation is very specific to countries,” adding that the challenge is taking solutions to scale. Nadar-Malhotra, who also co-chairs the B20 Taskforce on Digital Transformation, said the B20 Task Force on Technology, Innovation and R&D’s recommendation for such a digital platform aligns with that of her own task force’s focus on bridging the digital divide, addressing digital literacy and the skills gap, enterprise transformation of MSMEs with a digital toolkit, and fostering digital trust. Developing future skills will be key and has boded India well since it invested in R&D in information technology since the 1970s, she said. This attracted international companies to come and leverage its capabilities.

The Chinese digital yuan pilot’s spread to Hong Kong may be playing a part in driving up cross-border payments, media outlets have suggested.

The Digital Dollar Project is the brainchild of former CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo, ex-CFTC chief innovation officer Daniel Gorfine and Pure Storage CEO Charles Giancarlo, who have set up a not-for-profit to encourage research and public discussion about a CBDC.The project worked with Western Union, BDO Unibank in the Philippines, and Accenture on the latest pilot, designing and configuring a platform using DLT to simulate the payments infrastructure necessary to transfer digital dollars to Philippine pesos. The partners say that they saw reduced counterparty and credit risk thanks to instant settlement.

Ripple has partnered with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to join its cross-border payments interoperability and extension (PIE) task force.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has recently announced a cross-border payments interoperability and extension (PIE) task force which includes the blockchain-based digital payment network, Ripple. 

Shivakumari Vigneshwari from Sri Lanka traveled to India to tie the knot with her Facebook friend of six years, 28-year-old Laxman from Chittoor district. Their love story unfolded when Laxman, a mason from Arimakulapalle, V Kota mandal, connected with Vigneshwari on Facebook back in 2017. After years of friendship, they decided to take their relationship to the next level, and on July 20, they exchanged vows at a serene temple in V Kota, Chittoor district.

Investing.com — Visa (NYSE:V) beat expectations on adjusted profit and revenue as cross-border payment volume remained strong.

Over 200 Hong Kong stores now accept digital yuan payments, banks have claimed, as China looks to take its CBDC into the cross-border space.

Universal Postal Union will evaluate UPI for integrating the unified payment interface with cross-border remittances using global postal network, an official release said on Tuesday. Director General of Universal Postal Union (DG UPU) Masahiko Metoki, who is on a three-day visit to India for the inauguration of UPU Regional Office, also met Minister of Communications, Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw here on Tuesday.

The Financial Stability Board has published a set of high-level standards, calling for regulators to foster cross-border cooperation and information sharing when overseeing digital assets.

UPI with the Instant Payment Platform (IPP) of UAE. According to the MoUs signed between the two central banks, both of them would now help each other in establishing a common framework for the promotion of the use of local currencies, i.e, the Indian rupee (INR) and the UAE Dirham (AED) for cross-border transactions.