Insights Archive

January 19, 2022

European Blocklists Continue Rapid Growth As Spotlight Shines On Curaçao

The number of blocklisted online gambling domains across 18 reporting European countries, as monitored by VIXIO GamblingCompliance, increased by 55 percent to more than 150,000 in 2021.

January 19, 2022

UK University Students Borrow Money To Gamble, Study Says

More than a third of UK university students are using borrowed money to gamble, from payday loans to their student loan or overdrafts, according to a new survey.

January 18, 2022

EU And UK To Further Diverge In Key Payment Regulations In 2022

For the UK and the EU, the issues surrounding strong customer authentication, and its parent regulation, the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), are set to continue causing even more potential headaches for the payments world.

January 18, 2022

UPDATE: Visa Approved! Amazon Pulls Back From Ban

Online shopping giant Amazon has U-turned on its decision to block UK customers from using Visa credit cards to make purchases.

January 18, 2022

Pan-African Cross-Border Payment Network Launched

The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, which enables instant cross-border payments in local currencies between African markets, launched last Thursday (January 13).

January 18, 2022

PSR Lays Out Five-Year Strategy

In its new five-year strategy, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) sets out its vision of how the UK payments landscape should look and the path needed to get there.

January 18, 2022

New Jersey Sees Record Sports Betting In 2021, But New York Threat Looms

New Jersey continued its impressive sports-betting growth in 2021, more than doubling the revenue of the previous year, but as the calendar turns, the state’s sports-betting market now faces the biggest threat yet to its meteoric rise.

January 18, 2022

Macau Law Grips Casino Finances, Caps Tables, Boosts CSR

Draft amendments to Macau’s casino law confirm no increase in taxes, but impose heavy burdens on junkets and inventory caps on tables and slots, while further tightening regulation and codifying corporate social responsibility (CSR) targets.

January 18, 2022

Svenska Spel Lowers Some Players' Limits Over Finances, Behaviour

Swedish state-owned operator Svenska Spel has set lower deposit limits for a “small number” of its customers based on their financial means and behaviour.

January 17, 2022

MPs To Investigate Post-Brexit Card Fees, PSR Governance

The influential Treasury Select Committee has committed to investigating UK card fee rises for businesses, following correspondence with the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR).

January 17, 2022

EU’s Retail Payments Strategy To Focus on Instant Payments This Year, Experts Suggest

The EU’s push for instant payments looks set to continue dominating Brussels’ payments agenda this year, but will more concrete policies be unveiled?

January 17, 2022

Swiss Test Integrates Wholesale CBDC Into Core Banking Systems

As part of Project Helvetia, the Swiss National Bank and five commercial banks have integrated a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) in their existing back-office systems and processes.

January 17, 2022

U.S. Regulators To Step Up Their Crypto Enforcement In 2022

Congress is unlikely to legislate crypto in the U.S., but there is likely to be increased enforcement activities from regulators that was not expected, experts tell VIXIO.

January 17, 2022

Swedish Stakeholders Concerned Over Black Market Plan

The two Swedish gambling trade groups support the proposals of the Ministry of Finance’s to combat match-fixing and unlicensed gambling, but both are concerned the strategy will not achieve its aims.

January 14, 2022

Week In Brief - January 14, 2022

A short roundup of some of the week's payments news you may have missed. This week we look at a new initiative between U.S. banks to issue a stablecoin, the highest valued UK payments start-up, J.P. Morgan's latest actions to improve cross-border payments through blockchain, and the latest GDPR guidance on data breach notifications.

January 14, 2022

’No Convincing Case’: House Of Lords Dismisses UK CBDC

The creation of an official UK digital currency could lead to a run on the banks during economic downturns, a bipartisan committee of peers has warned.

January 14, 2022

Norway Coming In From The Cold As NOK Becomes NPC Scheme Currency

The Nordic Payments Council (NPC) has added the Norwegian krone (NOK) as a scheme currency after P27 exiter Norway took a strategic step to use the Nordic payment scheme.

January 14, 2022

Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Proposal Sets High Bar To Compliance

This week, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority issued a new discussion paper looking at what the regulatory approach to crypto-assets and stablecoins should be, causing concern for some in the process.

January 14, 2022

Macau Amendments Back Six Operators, Ten-Year Concessions

Macau’s next era of casino gaming will see a maximum of six operators holding ten-year concessions, according to a government summary of draft legal amendments announced late Friday.

January 14, 2022

Ireland Online Safety Bill First Step In Updating Digital Regulations

Ireland’s government is publishing its long-awaited Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, saying it will be the first in a series of regulatory updates including its forthcoming gambling bill to update the country’s laws for a digital age.

January 14, 2022

German Fan Group Calls For Crackdown On Gambling-Sports Links

A German fan organisation is calling for stricter regulation of football’s links to sports betting, saying clubs have had “far too much emphasis on profit” and not enough consideration of the potential for gambling addiction.