ICONLOOP Helps Craft Common DID Standards for Financial Sector
ICONLOOP, Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom have joined with the Financial Security Institute and financial institutions such as banks, securities houses, insurance providers and card companies to develop financial security standards for DID.
These standards define terminology pertaining to DID and establish data protection requirements. They also come as DID gains greater attention within digital financial services with demand for untact transactions growing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In particular, the standards establish the concept and model for an ID management framework, means for ID certification and mutual interworking and requirements for data protection.
The Financial Security Institute plans to register the new standards as a broader IT industry standard through talks with related organizations such as the Telecommunications Technology Association so that DID comes into active use as means of identification for financial consumers.
Bank of Korea: COVID-19 Could Speed Up Issuance of CBCDs in Major Countries
South Korea’s central bank believes the global COVID-19 pandemic could encourage major nations to issue more quickly central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
In a report released Sunday, the Bank of Korea said the use of cash had fallen in some countries because of social distancing, the fear of transmitting COVID-19 through cash and the closure of bank branches. It also noted that since the outbreak of the disease, untact payments have been on the rise due to concerns about payment safety and growing online consumption.
Indeed, sales at online shopping malls in South Korea such as Coupon and Ebay Korea have been skyrocketing.
The Bank for International Settlements agrees with the Bank of Korea’s prediction. Researchers there issued a forecast on Friday that suggested the COVID-19 pandemic could spur adoption of CBDCs. Coindesk writes:
“CBDC could bridge society’s need for digital payments with its responsibility to those who cannot easily access them. There are a few caveats: Central banks would have to tailor their CBDCs to ‘the context of the current crisis,’ by making payment contactless and accessibility universal, the researchers wrote.”
Also in the Korean blockchain space…
(By Luana Pascu, BiometricUpdate.com, March 31)
A pilot project by South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is letting citizens use digital IDs to board domestic flights. Lack of physical identification has prevented nearly 10,000 citizens per year from boarding domestic flights. People can now download a digital ID from a government app.
(By TIm Alper, Cryponews, April 1)
A recent amendment to South Korean laws pertaining to P2P finance has some worried that it could strangle the country’s infant DeFi industry in its cradle by banning the use of “high-risk” assets in P2P loans and investments. The Financial Services commission has defined crypto assets as “high risk.” Other observers note, however, that the legal revision would not app[ly to DeFi providers.
(By Julian Thomas, BeInCrypto, March 31)
Kakao’s blockchain project Klaytn experience a recent hiccup that halted block production for about three hours. Unstable communication between consensus nodes was the problem, though what causes that is still unknown.
