The Carrier Blockchain Study Group (CBSG) Consortium is one such collaboration doing just that. Launched in September 2017, the group provides a secure way for telecom customers to make digital payments directly with their carriers using blockchain technology.
Further developments to blockchain technology are being tackled every day. One of the biggest challenges is how best companies working on blockchain can make their services not only accessible but also practical for users in different countries.
Blockchain platform TBCASoft, a founding member of the CBSG, announced in a Feb. 18 press release that Taiwan-based Asia Pacific Telecom Co. Ltd. (APTG) and a US mobile carrier successfully completed Proof-of-Business (PoB) payment transactions. Using the Cross-Carrier Payment System (CCPS), a blockchain network developed by TBCASoft, transactions can be paid directly in the user’s currency through their mobile carrier.
Partnerships lead to blockchain technology innovation
The CBSG worked with local merchants in Taiwan to complete transactions through APTG’s payment system, Gt Pay. All participants were mobile subscribers with a US-based carrier. APTG Vice President of Marketing Mei-Hui Teng commented on the success of the PoB:
“We will be one of the first carriers to launch the cross-border payment service and commercialize it in the Taiwan market. We foresee the strong growth of overseas travel and the popularity of the e-wallet service; our cross-border mobile payment service will create a considerable benefit to APTG’s subscribers. The service can help travelers reduce foreign transaction fees and enjoy the benefits of mobile cashless payments.”
They’re not the first blockchain platform to see the advantages of working together. Samsung Pay partnered with the payment platform Finablr on Oct. 3 to offer cross-border payments to its users.
Portugal Unveils ‘Free Zones’ for Emerging Technologies in Digital Action Plan
The Portuguese government plans to create “Technological Free Zones” (Zonas Livres Tecnológicas) with tailored regulatory regimes that encourage innovation and experimentation.
Unveiled on April 21 as part of the country’s ambitious digital transition action plan, the country’s Council of Ministers pledged that the new zones will be adapted so as to lessen the regulatory and legal burden on the developers of new and experimental technologies.
Independent Portuguese law firm Vieira de Almeida has noted that the legal framework being adopted for the free zones goes beyond existing approaches to regulatory sandboxes, which are typically disparate and set up according to a sector or pre-defined area.
Instead, the Council of Ministers intends to foster experimentation across industries:
“The Resolution notes the importance of approving a legal framework that promotes and streamlines experimentation activities in a cross-sector manner in order to take advantage of all the opportunities brought by new technologies – from artificial intelligence to blockchain, bio- and nanotechnology, 3D printing, virtual reality, robotics and the Internet of Things, and including Big Data and the 5G network.”
This, Vieira de Almeida claims, represents a more coherent and aligned approach to developing products and services, both private and public, with feedback from diverse regulatory agencies.
Portugal’s action plan for the “construction of a digital society” will drive a knowledge-based economy to boost productivity growth, and includes key areas of focus such as regulation, digital privacy, cyber-security and defense, the data economy, communications and infrastructure.
The government has unveiled educational initiatives to broaden digital inclusion for citizens and says new technologies are essential for economic development and the restructuring of the state, private sector and strategic industrial sectors.
As Cointelegraph has previously reported, Portugal has, for now, a less onerous taxation regime for retail traders in crypto, yet the country is yet to establish a designated regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies.
Issuing and trading cryptocurrencies thus remains unregulated and unsupervised by the country’s central bank or other financial authority.
