BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -OpenAI and Sur Energy have signed a letter of intent for a data center project in Argentina requiring an investment of up to $25 billion, the nation's government said on Friday. (Reporting by Walter Bianchi; Editing by Natalia Siniawski)
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chair of the Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that major U.S. online retail websites have removed millions of listings for prohibited Chinese electronics as part of a crackdown by the agency. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in an interview that the items removed are either on a U.S. list of barred equipment or were not authorized by the agency, including items like security cameras and phones from companies like Huawei and ZTE. Earlier this week, the FCC said it plans to vote this month to tighten restrictions on telecommunications equipment made by Chinese companies deemed national security risks. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter)
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(Reuters) -Blue Ocean, an off-exchange platform that enables overnight U.S. stock trading, said on Friday it was making a push into blockchain-based equity offerings, becoming the latest trading venue betting big on tokenization. The move comes as corporations and governments embrace digital assets, upgrading them from the fringes of finance to a key portfolio allocation and now a critical underpinning of the trading ecosystem. Tokenization refers to the process of turning financial assets – such as bank deposits, stocks, bonds, funds and even real estate – into blockchain-based assets. These "tokens", then, can be held in crypto wallets and traded on blockchain, providing them with around-the-clock markets. Nasdaq filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month to tweak its rules and allow the trading of listed stocks and exchange-traded products on its main market in "either traditional digital or tokenized form". The shortfalls in the current infrastructure for overnight trading were in focus during the global selloff in August last year, when Blue Ocean's alternative trading system – that matches buyers and sellers – crashed due to capacity constraints. In response, the company upgraded its capacity by several hundredfold in the weeks that followed. An alternative trading system, or ATS, operated by privately held Blue Ocean powers the expanded trading capabilities at Robinhood, Schwab, Interactive Brokers and Webull. An ATS matches buyers and sellers outside traditional stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Proponents of tokenization say it can improve liquidity in the financial system, especially for assets such as real estate, by breaking them into small digital tokens. Critics, however, question how blockchain could be any more efficient than the electronic ledgers and trading systems already used in financial markets. Buyers of third-party tokens, which are issued by unaffiliated third parties that have custody of securities – such as crypto exchange Kraken – could be exposed to counterparty risks, setting off warnings from regulators. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
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By Elizabeth Howcroft and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) -Ten major banks including Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS are jointly exploring issuing a stablecoin, the latest sign of traditional finance seeking to get to grips with the growth of digital assets. The group of lenders, which includes Citi, MUFG, Barclays, TD Bank, Santander and BNP Paribas, will work together to explore creating blockchain-based assets pegged to G7 currencies, the banks said in a statement on Friday. The project, which is in its early stages, will explore whether there is value in issuing assets on public blockchains which are pegged 1:1 to real-world currencies – a type of cryptocurrency known as stablecoins. "The objective of the initiative is to explore whether a new industry-wide offering could bring the benefits of digital assets and enhance competition across the market, while ensuring full compliance with regulatory requirements and best practice risk management," the banks said. CRYPTO RALLY, TRUMP AID INTEREST IN STABLECOINS Various banks and other financial institutions have announced plans to look at launching stablecoins, as soaring crypto prices and U.S. President Donald Trump's support for the sector has sparked a revival of interest in the idea of using blockchain in the mainstream financial system. Regulators and financial stability authorities have expressed concern that stablecoins could facilitate the movement of funds outside regulated banking systems, potentially undermining the role of commercial banks in global payment flows. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has warned UK banks against issuing their own stablecoins, while the European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said in June that privately issued stablecoins posed risks for monetary policy and financial stability. So far stablecoins have been largely used for moving money between crypto markets, which remain a small part of wider financial markets. Nearly nine-tenths of stablecoin transactions are related to crypto trading while just 6% for actual payment of goods or services, BCG estimated in a report earlier this year. The market is dominated by the El Salvador-based Tether, which accounts for $179 billion of the $310 billion worth of stablecoins in circulation, according to CoinGecko. France's Societe Generale, which was not included in the list, became the first major bank to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin through its digital asset subsidiary earlier this year. The token has not been widely adopted, with just $30.6 million in circulation. RIVAL CONSORTIUM OF BANKS LAUNCHING A EURO STABLECOIN A separate consortium of nine European banks including heavyweights ING and UniCredit, said last month they were forming a new company to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin. Some bank bosses say they see greater promise in the tokenisation of financial assets, in which digital representations of assets such as deposits, stocks and bonds are created and stored on a blockchain. Citi's CEO said in July that tokenised deposits were probably more important than a stablecoin. Many such projects remain in the pilot phase and executives said last year that efforts to tokenise assets were moving more slowly than expected. (Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Editing by Louise Heavens)
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BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -OpenAI and Sur Energy have signed a letter of intent for a data center project in Argentina requiring an investment of up to $25 billion, the nation's government said on Friday. The project would involve a large-scale facility with a capacity of up to 500 megawatts to support advanced artificial intelligence computing, according to a government statement. Structured under Argentina's RIGI tax break scheme which went into effect last year, the project, if completed, would be "one of the largest technology and energy infrastructure initiatives," in the country's history, the statement said. (Reporting by Walter Bianchi; Editing by Natalia Siniawski)
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(Reuters) -Blue Ocean, an off-exchange platform that enables overnight U.S. stock trading, said on Friday it was making a push into blockchain-based equity offerings, becoming the latest trading venue betting big on tokenization. The move comes as corporations and governments embrace digital assets, upgrading them from the fringes of finance to a key portfolio allocation and now a critical underpinning of the trading ecosystem. Tokenization refers to the process of turning financial assets – such as bank deposits, stocks, bonds, funds and even real estate – into blockchain-based assets. These "tokens", then, can be held in crypto wallets and traded on blockchain, providing them with around-the-clock markets. Nasdaq filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month to tweak its rules and allow the trading of listed stocks and exchange-traded products on its main market in "either traditional digital or tokenized form". The shortfalls in the current infrastructure for overnight trading were in focus during the global selloff in August last year, when Blue Ocean's alternative trading system – that matches buyers and sellers – crashed due to capacity constraints. In response, the company upgraded its capacity by several hundredfold in the weeks that followed. An alternative trading system, or ATS, operated by privately held Blue Ocean powers the expanded trading capabilities at Robinhood, Schwab, Interactive Brokers and Webull. An ATS matches buyers and sellers outside traditional stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Proponents of tokenization say it can improve liquidity in the financial system, especially for assets such as real estate, by breaking them into small digital tokens. Critics, however, question how blockchain could be any more efficient than the electronic ledgers and trading systems already used in financial markets. Buyers of third-party tokens, which are issued by unaffiliated third parties that have custody of securities – such as crypto exchange Kraken – could be exposed to counterparty risks, setting off warnings from regulators. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Commission is scrutinising safeguards for minors on Snapchat, YouTube, the Apple App Store and Google Play under its Digital Services Act (DSA), it said on Friday. The Commission is asking the businesses to provide information on their age verification systems, as well as on how they prevent minors from accessing illegal products, including drugs and vapes, or harmful material, such as contents promoting eating disorders. "Today, alongside national authorities in the member states, we are assessing whether the measures taken so far by the platforms are indeed protecting children," EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said. Google in a response said it had already put in place measures to ensure its platforms offered age appropriate experiences and had "robust" controls for parents. "We keep expanding these efforts (and) continue to engage with the Commission on this critical area," a Google spokesperson said. The DSA is an EU landmark law that requires online companies to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content on their platforms. (Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Bart Meijer. Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Mark Potter and Inti Landauro)
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BEIJING (Reuters) -China has launched an antitrust investigation into U.S. semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm over its acquisition of Israel's Autotalks, China's market regulator said on Friday. China's State Administration for Market Regulation said the probe would look at whether Qualcomm violated China's antitrust law by not lawfully declaring some details in its acquisition of the Israeli chip designer. San Diego-based Qualcomm said in June it had finalised the deal for Autotalks, which makes communications chips to help prevent car crashes, without disclosing the size, or how it had resolved earlier sticking points. Qualcomm had said in 2024 it would drop the bid for Autotalks after it failed to get regulatory approvals in a timely manner. Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Chinese probe. In 2015, the major supplier of mobile phone chips paid a $975 million fine to resolve a Chinese antitrust case. The latest investigation comes after Beijing last month accused U.S. AI chip maker Nvidia of violating China's anti-monopoly law. Both probes could heighten tensions between China and the U.S. at a time when they appear to be struggling to move beyond a trade tariff truce. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet when they attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea at the end of this month. (Reporting by Liz Lee, Brenda Goh and Beijing newsroom. Editing by Jane Merriman and Mark Potter)
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BEIJING (Reuters) -China has launched an antitrust investigation into U.S. semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm over its acquisition of Israel's Autotalks, China's market regulator said on Friday. China's State Administration for Market Regulation said the probe would look at whether Qualcomm violated China's antitrust law by not lawfully declaring some details in its acquisition of the Israeli chip designer. Qualcomm's shares were down 2.8% in premarket trading. CHINA, US TRADE TENSIONS San Diego-based Qualcomm said in June it had finalised the deal for Autotalks, which makes communications chips to help prevent car crashes, without disclosing the size, or how it had resolved earlier sticking points. Qualcomm had said in 2024 it would drop the bid for Autotalks after it failed to get regulatory approvals in a timely manner. Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Chinese probe. In 2015, the major supplier of mobile phone chips paid a $975 million fine to resolve a Chinese antitrust case. The latest investigation comes after Beijing last month accused U.S. AI chip maker Nvidia of violating China's anti-monopoly law. Both probes could heighten tensions between China and the U.S. at a time when they appear to be struggling to move beyond a trade tariff truce. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet when they attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea at the end of this month. (Reporting by Liz Lee, Brenda Goh and Beijing newsroom. Editing by Jane Merriman and Mark Potter)
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) -A digital euro could drain up to 700 billion euros ($810.88 billion) in deposits during a run on commercial banks, pushing around a dozen euro zone lenders into a liquidity squeeze, a European Central Bank simulation showed on Friday. The study, requested by European legislators, was aimed at evaluating the risks that a digital currency, essentially an electronic wallet guaranteed by the ECB, would pose to the banking sector under different scenarios, including a hypothetical "flight to safety". The ECB has presented the digital currency as an alternative to U.S.-dominated means of payment, but bankers and some lawmakers fear it may empty banks' coffers. The ECB's study found that, were there to be an unprecedented run on commercial banks, depositors would withdraw 699 billion euros from euro zone banks to park them in digital euros if a limit on individual holdings was set at 3,000 euros each. This is equal to 8.2% of all retail sight deposits, although the impact would be greater for small market lenders and retail banks, the ECB said. Under this scenario, which the ECB described as highly unlikely, 13 of the 2,025 banks in the analysis would deplete their mandatory cash buffer, as measured by the Liquidity Coverage Ratio. "There is a strong focus on aggregate numbers and I still see a risk that smaller banks that heavily rely on retail deposits might run into trouble with excessively high holding limits," Markus Ferber, lawmaker for the European People's Party, said. "In a digital age, bank runs happen much quicker and much more forcefully than before. So, there is good reason to be extra cautious." The ECB said the figures may be an overestimation as they don't consider the fact that some depositors have more than one bank account. Under the ECB's "business as usual scenario", in which depositors don't make full use of their digital euro allowance, just over 100 billion euros would flee banks' coffers, leaving the sector well within liquidity requirements, the study found. And even this outflow could be more than offset by an ongoing trend out of cash and into electronic means of payment, which should add to banks' deposits, the ECB added. The ECB also simulated individual holding limits of 500 euros, 1,000 euros and 2,000 euros, obtaining lower outflow estimates. "The analysis confirms that holding limits effectively restrict deposit outflows from the banking sector to levels that safeguard the stability of the financial system and support the correct formulation and implementation of monetary policy," the ECB said. It also found that a 3,000 euro holding limit would reduce banks' return on equity by an average 30 basis points, although the impact differs country by country. "You can only make the digital euro attractive if you're willing to hurt banks a little," said Fabio De Masi, a member of the European Parliament and of Germany's Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party. EU finance ministers agreed last month a roadmap for launching the digital euro but retained a say on its eventual introduction and on the holding limit. ($1 = 0.8633 euros) (Reporting by Francesco CanepaEditing by Frances Kerry)
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