News Nuggets | 1 June: Revolut Hits 30M Users; Crypto Trading on TP ICAP

Amazon Settles FTC Privacy Allegations

Amazon has agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over $30 million to settle charges of privacy violations concerning its Alexa and Ring services, according to recent filings. The FTC lawsuit accused Amazon's Ring doorbell division of contravening a part of the FTC Act forbidding unfair or deceptive business practices. In response, Amazon settled by agreeing to pay $5.8 million.

Worldline Joins Forces with VTEX

In a bid to empower e-commerce brands with enhanced performance and entry into untapped markets, Worldline and VTEX have joined forces. The partnership provides merchants access to Worldline's international payment solutions in markets, such as Latin America, South Korea, and Turkey.

Merchants utilizing the VTEX platform can amplify their sales potential through Worldline's payment processing plug-in. This innovation improves authorization and conversion rates and offers a smooth secure customer payment experience.

Klarpay Expands Local ACH Payments Globally

Klarpay AG has significantly enhanced its global payment solutions by integrating international ACH payments. This streamlines in-country transfers with faster clearing times and considerably lower transaction costs for both parties involved.

Martynas Bieliauskas, Klarpay AG's CEO, highlighted that this addition would augment their clients' capabilities. Also, it would allow them to process both international and domestic payments efficiently. This enhancement aligns with Klarpay's commitment to offering economical payment solutions.

Adyen Launches Accelerated Payout Services

Adyen, a prominent global financial technology platform, recently introduced Payout Services. This service expedites the payout of funds to the preferred method of Adyen's customers' associated users or partners.

The capability to execute faster payouts is backed by Adyen's branch and banking licenses and its direct link to real-time banking and card schemes. This enables payments to be processed up to three days quicker than the industry standard.

"We see this as an opportunity to provide a market-leading solution that supports real-time payouts," Roelant Prins, the CCO at Adyen, commented.

JPX Trading Activity in May 2023

The Japan Exchange Group shared details regarding its May 2023 trading activity. In the Cash Equity Market, the daily average trading value for the Prime Market (consisting of domestic common stocks) was reported to be JPY 4.0491 trillion. The daily average trading value for the ETF market was cited as JPY 237.7 billion during the same period.

Regarding the Derivatives Market, there was a total derivatives trading volume of 31,137,611 contracts in May 2023. Additionally, the total derivatives trading value climbed to JPY 236 trillion in the same month.

Bitget Pioneers Multi-Chain EVM Address

The leading crypto derivatives platform, Bitget, is the premier digital assets exchange to enable EVM-compatible addresses. This fresh addition propels a user-friendly trading experience by allowing a single address for diverse blockchains.

The Bitget users can now trade and store assets using one EVM-Compatible Address across different chains. Bitget's innovation involves multiple blockchain networks, like Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Arbitrum One, Optimism, and others. Users adding an EVM address to their transactions can withdraw directly to it, avoiding intermediary stages such as bridges and platform transitions.

"The blockchain space is extremely crowded and navigating its many technical aspects is a serious impediment for new entrants," Gracy Chen, the Managing Director of Bitget, said. "Our goal is to drastically cut down the time and effort users need for basic operations. The EVM address feature is one such option that removes associated challenges."

Revolut Gets 30 Million Users

The number of users on Revolut has surpassed 30 million, the UK-headquartered challenger bank revealed, adding that it is processing more than 400 million transactions per month. The platform reached the milestone of 25 million customers last November.

The platform has 6.8 million customers in the UK, 2.8 million in Romania, 2.5 million in Poland, 1.8 million in Spain, and 2.2 million in France.

“Revolut is growing at almost one million customers per month,” said Nik Storonsky, the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut. “This is a fantastic achievement for the company, and reaching 30 million customers is another important milestone we are immensely proud of as we continue to grow and scale at pace.”

CySEC Slaps Symbolic €100 Fine to 4 CIFs

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has imposed €100 administrative fines each on four different Cyprus Investment Firms (CIFs). The companies are TriangleView Investments Ltd, Eight Plus Capital Ltd, Ayomi Financial Services Ltd, and IWG International Wealth Group Ltd.

The fines came as the companies failed to submit the QST-CIF Form to CySEC for either the third or fourth quarter of 2022.

It is not the first such symbolic fine slapped by CySEC on CIFs. However, the regulator is finding serious compliance failures in the operations of retail brokers, fining them heavily and even revoking licenses in extreme cases.

Ex-Capital.com Affiliate Head Joins PrimeXBT

Evgenios Limniotes, who previously worked at Capital.com, has joined PrimeXBT as the Head of Affiliate Marketing. Before taking up the new role, he was the Head Of Business Development at Capital.com, where he started as the Head of Affiliates.

Limniotes held the Head Of Business Development role at Currency.com, a sister company of Capital.com. Earlier, he worked at HotForex, Fidelis Capital Markets, and Goldenburg Group Limited.

Orbex Launches New ZERO Spread Trading Account

FX/CFDs broker, Orbex, is trying to lure retail traders by launching a Zero spread trading account with a $1 commission per side. The broker will onboard new clients under the temporary account type until September 30.

“Raw spreads from 0.0 pips, zero swaps, and just $1 commission per side, all in one account!” the broker highlighted. The account will offer 0 swaps and leverage up to 500:1.

TP ICAP Launches Crypto Spot Trading

TP ICAP, the largest interdealer-broker, last week launched the Fusion Digital Assets marketplace for offering spot crypto trading to institutional clients. The platform has already completed the first XBTUSD transaction with the settlement processed by Fidelity Digital Assets.

The crypto trading platform is operating with authorization from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. It uses the digital technology suite offered by GMEX Technologies.

“Institutional demand to trade spot cryptoassets is significant and growing,” said Duncan Trenholme, the Co-Head of digital assets at TP ICAP. “Our partnership with GMEX, and the new Fusion Digital Assets platform, is a natural evolution in market structure that will make digital assets more accessible for wholesale market clients who want to be able to trade, invest and safely access this growing area of the market.”

Thai Stock Market Taps Nasdaq’s Technology

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has launched a new trading system, with market data distribution and market surveillance systems, based on the technology provided by American giant Nasdaq.

“The new system implementation is an upgrade of the core operating system that is the heart of the Thai capital market, making it more efficient and flexible, ready to support the development of the capital market in the future,” said SET’s President, Pakorn Peetathawatchai.