According to various media reports, India’s biggest bank has disabled its UPI feature for digital asset firms, with payment settlement firms also toeing the same step.
Financial Settlement Firms Followed An Order
Various media sources broke the news of India’s SBI refusing access to its integrated payment platform by crypto-related firms. India’s apex payment solution (the NPCI) developed the UPI to enable payment settlements using mobile devices. The country’s apex bank regulates and supervises the UPI network.
Per the instruction, no SBI bank user can use the UPI for any crypto-related transaction such as BTC. When sought for comments, a top-level executive of the SBI bank declined comments saying, “the bank’s policy is never to comment individually on such matters. An official statement will be put out soon.” Back in May, when many banks were declining financial transactions with crypto merchants, the NPCI announced that any bank user could make fiat-crypto transactions using the UPI.
Also, it suggested that banks assess the risks involved and decide whether it will enable crypto transactions for their customers. The media reports that financial institutions might be unwilling to allow crypto firms access to the UPI dashboard despite the change of policy by the SBI. A top digital asset exchange in the country is feeling the effects already and has announced that it would seek a discussion with the SBI regarding the issue.
The exchange’s CEO said, “our company follows all anti-fraud measures, and we’ll seek a dialogue with the regulators regarding this issue. This is a fundamental issue that affects millions of crypto players in the country, especially our platform, which has almost the largest number of crypto players in India.”
Indian Crypto Exchanges Lure Users
Despite the unfortunate news from the Indian financial regulator, crypto exchanges are planning to leverage the forthcoming Hindu celebration to increase their userbase. One of the exchanges, Unocoin, revealed that it plans to educate Indians about crypto trading.
It also plans to offer Indians gift vouchers to entice them into owning a trading account on their platform. Another top exchange, Wazirx, plans to launch several attractive product offerings during this period.
World’s First Blockchain-Built Fraud Detection System Is Launched
While Indian authorities continue to show hatred towards the crypto space, several giant exploits are being made. Ecoin, a mass adoption DeFi project, has launched the world’s first blockchain-built fraud detection system, according to an announcement made available today.
The aim is to ensure little or no risk in onboarding crypto projects. Asides from the news of this launch, Ecoin also announced that it had joined the XDX network to scale its governance token. Launched August 2020, Ecoin boasts more than 1.6m members and more than 350,000 active Ecoin foundation members.
One of the keys to its massive growth within this short period is its lightning-fast transaction speed and almost zero transaction fees. After joining the XDC network, Ecoin is burning 11% of its governance token in circulation, and the ecosystem has approved the burning of an additional 82%.
