#231—Revolut’s superapp messaging play

Also, a comprehensive UK bill classifies stablecoins

Nov 07, 2022

Welcome to Yaka Stuff, our weekly newsletter that covers news, industry perspectives, and updates from the Hard Yaka ecosystem. Check out last week’s report here.

This week:

Revolut’s superapp messaing play
Ecosystem update: Indicio x Google
Ecosystem update: Olyn chats with Greg Kidd
This week in identity
This week in rulemaking
What we’re reading: Japan’s robo-minister and his digital identity ambitions
Stuff happens

1. Revolut’s superapp messaging play

Revolut underscored its superapp ambitions with the release of its latest feature—messaging, apparently the first banking app to do so in the European Economic Area and the first payments app to do so in the UK.

From Revolut’s announcement:

A recent UK and European survey of 8,000 people, commissioned by Revolut, found that two thirds of people (67.5%) find it difficult to discuss money. The new chat feature in the Revolut app aims to make talking about money less awkward by keeping it in one place.
…
Nikolay Storonsky, CEO of Revolut, said: “We’re delighted to bring instant messaging to our customers, moving us one step closer to being a global financial superapp. We listened to our customers who said they wanted to be able to discuss and clarify payment details within the app, rather than having to swap between Revolut and different messaging apps to send or receive funds.

Part of the purpose is social, but messaging is also core to payments from a security perspective. As Hard Yaka co-founder Greg Kidd noted, “that’s why SWIFT exists in the banking world.”

For instance, the simple act of asking someone if they intended to perform a high risk transaction closes a potentially huge attack vector. Identity and credentials without context represents a major operational risk. Here’s Greg, again:

The "why" for sending money is as important as the “what.”

It’s also why GlobaliD has had end-to-end encrypted messaging since 2020. For identity to be useful and secure, you need to be able to interact and transact. (The new non-custodial GlobaliD Wallet launched last month.)

Relevant:

Revolut launches Revolut Chat, an instant messaging feature in step forward to super app

2. Ecosystem update: Indicio x Google

Indicio has joined Google Cloud’s Partner Advantage program, which means their off-the-shelf verifiable credentials solution, Proven, is now offered by a cloud provider, paving the way for greater adoption.

Here’s Indicio CEO Heather Dahl:

Decentralized identity has long been seen as the solution to the interconnected problems of verification, privacy, and security in digital interaction. With this partnership between Indicio and Google Cloud, and our products in the Google Cloud Marketplace, this technology is now easy to use, deploy, and scale. The opportunities to solve immediate and costly problems around fraud, privacy, and verification are enormous. The opportunities to create new products and services are enormous too — this is a technology for managing devices and machines and accelerating digital transformation across every sector.

The verifiable credentials startup also recently won the prestigious Constellation Research SuperNova award:

The SuperNova reflected Indicio’s ground-breaking work to create seamless travel solutions using open source decentralized identity technology. Working with SITA, the world’s leading provider of IT to the air transport industry, and the government of Aruba, Indicio began by tackling the challenge of reopening Aruba, a tourism dependent economy, to air travel during the pandemic.
Using verifiable credentials supported by decentralized identifiers and Indicio’s global blockchain network, visitors were able to receive tamper-proof digital credentials containing their health data from a Health Information Exchange or a test lab — in this case, proof of a Covid-19 test or vaccination — and share that information through a mobile device app with full consent in a privacy-preserving way to enter the island and access event and hospitality spaces.
The solution avoided the need for direct integrations between health providers and airlines or airports or government departments — or having to use third-party management of personal information. The privacy-by-design nature of the solution made data privacy compliance simple: travelers held their own data and shared it by consent. As the project progressed, travelers were able to present their health data with their travel documents and be cleared for travel before they arrived at the airport.

You can also check out GlobaliD’s chat with Heather and Indicio CTO Ken Ebert:

Relevant:

3. Ecosystem update: Olyn chats with Greg Kidd about blockchain

4. This week in identity

5. This week in rulemaking:

A comprehensive bill from the UK classifies stablecoins as Deposit Settlement Tokens:

This Bill gives HM Treasury a power to bring digital settlement assets used for payments into the UK regulatory perimeter. It introduces a definition of “digital settlement asset”, a new concept which has not been previously defined in legislation. Given the nascent nature of the cryptoasset market, the Bill gives HM Treasury a power to amend this definition in the event that there are changes in the features, underlying technology or usage of these assets, so that the regulation can continue to have effect as intended.
As mentioned above, the government’s staged and proportionate approach will begin by
focusing on stablecoins which reference their value from fiat currency (such as Pound
Sterling), where used as a means of payment, because the government believes that such tokens share characteristics with existing forms of electronic money. This will ensure that fiatlinked stablecoins, where used for payments, are subject to the same requirements and protections as other similar payment methods.
A feature of the current design of the UK payments and electronic money legislation is a
degree of regulatory overlap between the authorities, where responsibilities are distributed across the regulators and they set requirements and oversee firms pursuant to their differing statutory objectives. By extending the existing frameworks to cover fiat-referenced stablecoins used as a means of payment, further regulatory overlaps will apply between the Bank of England and the FCA for a small number of systemic firms. The Bill therefore puts in place a regime that allows for the clear identification of the applicable regulatory requirements (for example, in relation to prudential rules) where a payment system using digital settlement assets or digital settlement asset service provider is recognised as being systemic by HM Treasury.

From the Cointelegraph report:

The bill reasserts the U.K.’s intention to become a global cryptocurrency hub, comments echoed by Lisa Cameron, member of parliament and the chairperson of The Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph over the weekend, she explained that crypto is on the lawmakers’ radar, although there is a lot of education to be done.
The bill builds upon existing measures to broaden regulations of stablecoins and mentions “Digital Settlement Assets” (DSA) as a new term, moving away from the use of “crypto assets.” According to the U.K. government, “crypto assets use some form of distributed ledger technology (DLT),” whereas DSA includes stablecoins, “given their potential to develop into a widespread means of payment.”
The U.K. government had previously commented that there will be a “package of measures” aimed at improving regulation and clarity surrounding blockchain, crypto and Bitcoin.

Also, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s regulated DeFi wish:

“Basically, especially at this time, regulation that leaves the crypto space free to act internally but makes it harder for crypto projects to reach the mainstream is much less bad than regulation that intrudes on how crypto works internally,” he said.

Relevant:

Via /kirkchapman—The UK Has a New Name for Stablecoins and a New Bill to Regulate Crypto
Via /kirkchapman—Copy of the Financial Services and Markets Bill (PDF)
Via /kirkchapman—Financial Services and Markets Bill Explanatory Notes (PDF)
Vitalik Buterin Shares the Kind of DeFi Regulation He Would Like to See
Via /nkhare—First Industry Pilot for Digital Asset and Decentralised Finance Goes Live
Project Cedar: NY Fed Launches Effort to Design Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency
Crypto Law Experts Suggest SEC Likely To Lose Key Case And Discredit Howey Test

6. What we’re reading: Japan’s robo-minister and his digital identity ambitions

Here’s the FT (via Greg):

There is probably only so much you can say when introduced to an intricately detailed, fully animated robot doppelgänger of yourself, engineered into existence by one of your country’s most brilliant minds.
Facing that exact set-up, Taro Kono, Japan’s grumpily Sisyphean Digital Affairs minister, settled for a quip: “I’d happily have it sit in for me at budget committee meetings.”
In general, I have plenty of sympathy with the flesh and blood Kono, a politician who has been tasked with leading the state of Japan into a pitched battle with the visceral instincts of the people of Japan. Since being entrusted with the job of weaning the nation off its analogue addiction in August, Kono, 59, has looked like a man facing down a cavalry charge with sharpened segments of peach. But now that he has the weaponry he needs, he risks becoming a national bogeyman.
One aim of Kono-bot was to help promote the rollout of the government’s digital ID system — a project that sits at the heart of any realistic plan for digital reform in Japan and that, in effect, needs 100 per cent national participation to function.

Check out the full piece: Via /gregkidd—The Robo-Minister Tasked with Helping Japan Go Digital

Yaka Stuff

#231—Revolut’s superapp messaging play

Also, a comprehensive UK bill classifies stablecoins

1. Revolut’s superapp messaging play

2. Ecosystem update: Indicio x Google

3. Ecosystem update: Olyn chats with Greg Kidd about blockchain

4. This week in identity

5. This week in rulemaking:

6. What we’re reading: Japan’s robo-minister and his digital identity ambitions

7. Stuff happens

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