News Digest from Monoup: Main Fintech and Gaming Events of the Week

As always, Monoup is here to provide you with the most important news from fintech. The immerse growth of offshore gambling in Poland has provoked a strict reaction from government and financial regulator. But this time, it is not illegal operators that are in the spotlight, but payment systems that provide services to them. This method of combating illegal gambling websites turns the standard approach of most countries by 180 degrees: from blocking all casino websites to targeted influence on payment providers. Read on to find out what will happen next.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, a similar situation is unfolding with the already legal industry. The nation is very actively involved in gambling, and government wants to take care of the citizens’ wallets by introducing restrictions.

Let’s jump into review of this week fintech and iGaming events that you definitely want to know.

Polish Payment Systems to Be Under Scrutiny for Gambling Transactions

The gray gambling market in Poland is thriving, according to the authorities, and therefore active measures are necessary. This topic sparked particular interest at the European Financial Congress in June, and the main stakeholders managed to hold several targeted meetings.

Polish Financial Regulator (KNF), Banking Association, and payment provider BLIK have jointly developed new ways to combat payments in favor of illegal gambling in the country and have decided to “put some pressure” on payment providers. Closing all possible payment channels for gray operators is the only option to truly defeat the illegal industry, as blocking the operators' websites themselves does not yield results since they immediately create new ones.

For its part, the KNF has already started sending official letters selected payment systems of their illegal services to gambling sites without Polish licenses. The regulator expects immediate compliance with the requirements: providers must audit their merchants and stop all illegal transactions related to gambling within 30 days from the date of notification. The success of this initiative will be seen over time, but it is clear that Polish authorities are taking the matter seriously and are also promoting this idea for the entire European Union, where a similar problem exists.

Philippine National Bank to Limit iGaming Transactions

In another part of the world, processes to control already legal gambling are also moving. In the Philippines, Central Bank has taken on the strict regulation of payments and payment systems that process gambling transactions.

To protect players from addiction and uncontrolled spending, following rules will be introduced:

• Strict KYC, including facial recognition, to confirm the users' age of majority.
• Creation of separate accounts within payment systems that will be intended for betting with a daily deposit limit of no more than 20% of the wallet's average daily balance. Thus, to deposit into a casino, user will first need to top up their special account inside the wallet and then conduct transaction.
• A daily time window of no more than six hours for transactions related to online gambling. This will limit the time for play during the day and prohibit 24/7 gambling to prevent the addiction.
• Setting up mandatory pop-up notifications in wallets and fintech applications about risks of gambling for particularly active users. If an e-wallet detects a large number of payments to gambling sites, it will be obliged to show notifications to reduce activity. This will also support responsible gaming framework and prevent players from living inside the casino.

The Central Bank will also require fintech to disable lending for gamblers so that they cannot take out loans for gambling use.

Payment Service Providers (PSPs) will be obliged to provide reports monthly or upon request with a detailed description of all operations related to gambling and a list of operators served. It is expected that main wallets, GCash and Maya, will be the first to implement these new rules.

Albania Considers Banning Cash

Albanian authorities intend to completely abandon cash to eliminate the massive shadow economy, which, according to different sources accounts for 29% - 50% of country's GDP.

The first steps in this direction will be to limit the amount of cash payments, then integrate with SEPA (by October), and soon after that, launch instant payments in Albania. It is worth noting the high level of ambition of this idea, only less than a half of population has an active bank account. This means that even if such measures are adopted and instant payments through SEPA start working as early as October, this will not guarantee appeal of this option for users. As is known, restrictions often only lead to new ways of doing the same.

The country has a serious problem with banking system trust and user experience. Local banks charge high fees for transactions and offer unfavorable exchange rates, which completely demotivates to use cashless payments. For example, domestic transfer may cost about 10% of the amount, and card acquiring changes around 3.5%. Given the low level of income such a system is expensive and unprofitable for most businesses and not prrferred by customers at all.

Based on this, we can suggest that reducing the cost of payments and improving user experience will initiate real achievement of desired cashless economy faster than restrictions on cash. But this option is not yet being considered.

Crypto in the USA Takes an Unexpected Turn

American White House is taking a route to crypto adoption and is ready to fully integrate digital currencies in the country. According to the newly published plan, firstly, the plan is to simplify banking rules, allowing them to issue and service transactions with stablecoins. They will also cooperate with law enforcement agencies and block suspicious payments if necessary. This will contribute to the transparency and accountability of the market.

Cryptocurrency will also be divided into subtypes: securities and exchange commodities. This will lead to a different taxation system that classifies crypto as a separate asset for tax purposes. This approach significantly differs from those of most countries that try to adapt cryptocurrency to the existing tax code and find a name for it among already clear fiat assets. This is not always successful, so the USA decided to immediately create separate tax regulations.

Additionally, the country will likely have a federal reserve in BTC; although it is not mentioned in Project Crypto, earlier comments from representatives indicate that this is also in progress.

In general, the USA is not against crypto but desperately wants to control it, which will certainly affect ordinary users. How — only time will tell.

Here are the news highlights for this week from Monoup. More short news can be found in our Telegram channel, and articles are available in the MonoTalks section.