New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) has launched a new Research and Innovation Division that will be responsible for licensing and supervising virtual currencies.
The division will also look at new way to use technology to address financial exclusion; identify and protect consumer data rights; and encourage innovations so that the state maintains its presence as a financial innovation hub.
“The financial services regulatory landscape needs to evolve and adapt as innovation in banking, insurance and regulatory technology continues to grow,” Financial Services Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell said in a press release. “This new division and these appointments position DFS as the regulator of the future, allowing the Department to better protect consumers, develop best practices, and analyze market data to strengthen New York’s standing as the center of financial innovation.”
In addition, Lacewell also announced leadership appointments in the new division, with Matthew Homer leading the new division as Executive Deputy Superintendent; Matthew Siegel and Olivia Bumgardner serving as Deputy Superintendents of the new division; and Andrew Lucas coming onboard as Counsel to the division.
In other news, cryptocurrency loan startup YouHodler forgot to password protect a server, which led to customer credit cards and user transactions being exposed for nearly one month.
Security researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar discovered the database and reported their findings to TechCrunch. The company then pulled the database offline. None of the information on the database, which held 86 million lines of daily updating records of the lending platform, was encrypted.
“The amount of information included in the database makes stealing a users identity a simple task,” said Rotem and Locar.
And the New York Times has revealed that it is planning to use blockchain technology to fight fake news.
Coindesk reported that the newspaper’s Research and Development team is partnering with IBM Garage to use Hyperledger Fabric’s permissioned blockchain to authenticate news photographs, including the item’s “contextual metadata” on a blockchain, including when and where a photo or video was shot, who took it and whether it was edited and published.
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