Exclusive interview with Monex CEO

Monex Group is a Japanese financial services company which operates the third largest foreign exchange brokerage in the country. It recently acquired cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck and is preparing its own ICO.

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Founder and CEO Oki Matsumoto explained to Finance Magnates why he thinks that brokers of both traditional financial assets and cryptocurrency should work more closely with financial regulators and why the cryptocurrency market is similar to the derivatives market of the 1980s. He also revealed some details of his company’s acquisition of Coincheck.

SIX Group to launch cryptocurrency exchange

Swiss corporation SIX Group, the owner of SIX Swiss Exchange, announced on Friday that it is building a cryptocurrency exchange.

Swiss Digital Exchange will launch next year and will be licensed by the Swiss financial authorities. SIX Group “runs the entire securities and payments value chain for Switzerland already”, according to SIX Group CEO Jos Dijsselhof, so the new entity is likely to be significant.

And another new cryptocurrency exchange

Bittrex, an American cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has partnered with foreign exchange broker invest.com to launch yet another new cryptocurrency exchange. Reportedly it will combine the 200 tokens offered by the former with the financial derivative experience of the latter.

The exchange will initially be available only to citizens of the European Union citizens – they can now pre-register.

Exclusive interview with CEO of OANDA

Vatsa Narasimha, CEO of American multi-asset brokerage OANDA, spoke to Finance Magnates about the future of his company – it was purchased by a private equity company called CVC Capital Partners Asia Fund in May, for $160 million.

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He talked about his role in making the deal, changes that the new owners intend to implement, and OANDA’s five-year-plan.

Exclusive interview with CEO of PumaPay

PumaPay is a blockchain-based billing protocol which raised $117 million in its ICO this year. It works by allowing merchants to pull money from the customer as opposed to customers pushing their money onto the merchant.

CEO Yoav Dror explained to Finance Magnates how the system works, why he thinks that it can work as well as credit cards, and why payment protocols can be “pretty sexy”.

Kraken vs Bloomberg

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken was the target of a flawed exposé published in Bloomberg. The writer attempted the prove that the price of Tether was being manipulated.

Kraken shot back, claiming that readers should be suspicious of Bloomberg – the analysis was so flawed that its only purpose could have been to manipulate the price by spreading doubt.

FCA takes blockchain firms under wing

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has been running a regulatory sandbox – a closed system where new companies can safely test their products – for a number of years now. Last week it announced the latest startups to win a place.

The watchdog said that 40 percent of applicants this year had been blockchain-related.