Three news to start your week: April 17
Bank of England Official Says Stablecoin Use May Need Limits
(Bloomberg)
As policymakers balance innovation and concerns, Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe suggested limiting stablecoin payments and warned that rapid payment system innovation could pose new threats to customers and financial markets.
"While, from a public policy perspective, we want competition and innovation in payments, we need to guard against rapid, disruptive change that does not allow the financial system time to adjust and could therefore threaten financial stability," Cunliffe said at a fintech industry event.
Non-bank firms issue stablecoins tied to an asset. Unlike Bitcoin, they use ledger technology to track ownership and maintain a constant value.
Loophole allowed swiss-owned company to trade Russian gold despite ban
(Financial Times)
Open Mineral Ltd., an Abu Dhabi affiliate of a Swiss commodity trader, bought $44mn of Russian gold despite a ban on Swiss businesses doing so, the latest example of Western sanctions against Moscow failing.
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Switzerland banned "the direct or indirect import, purchase or transfer" of Russian gold, including supplies to third nations.
However, Swiss law enables its abroad subsidiaries to sell Russian commodities if they are "legally independent," a term the Swiss sanctions enforcement agency did not define.
61% of financial institutions have no policy against deforestation
(El País)
Companies in all sectors lag regarding deforestation, but the finance sector is far behind. Global Canopy's Forest 500 report found that only 11% of financial institutions have policies against deforestation by soy, palm oil, wood pulp, paper, and leather. Also, only 32% have publicly recognized deforestation as a business risk.
However, not all of them check if the firms they invest in conform, resulting in an investment of 423 billion euros in Forest 500 firms without deforestation commitments last year.
It worries that a new European Law will ban companies from importing raw materials from forest destructions but will exempt the financial sector from the regulation.
