Uphold Brings India X-Border Payments

India FDI

Uphold, a cloud-based financial platform, has made a big move in the cross-border payments space by bringing its services to India.

The company announced yesterday (March 31) that its members — across any market — can use Uphold to send money instantly to any person in India that can then be accessed through any Indian bank. This is made possible through a partnership with IDFC Bank.

“IDFC Bank intends to simplify any form of transaction through digital innovation,” said Dr. Rajiv Lall, founder, MD and CEO of IDFC Bank. “We believe the benefits of today’s digital money ecosystem should be available to just about everyone, across geographies and customer segments. Our partnership with Uphold will help us achieve that. It enables customers of IDFC Bank, as well as non-customers, to receive funds in a secure and simple manner. The partnership is subject to approval from the RBI.”

This partnership allows Uphold members to create a unique code to be used one time for a transaction that can be sent via email or text to anyone in India. The person on the receiving end can then get those funds through the IDFC Bank’s website, which are then transferred to a bank account in India.

“Receiving more than $72 billion in 2015, India is the largest remittance country. We are addressing common challenges that stem from a mobile-first population dispersed around the countryside that have had to rely on high-fee, brick-and-mortar wire services far too long,” said Anthony Watson, president and CEO of Uphold. “Now, Uphold creates a safe, easy and more affordable way to send money to anyone in India, from any device, knowing it is redeemable through any bank.”

This service is set to be available across India starting in the second quarter of 2016.

“Our partnership allows Uphold to bring more affordable, accessible and innovative solutions to the 1.2 billion people of India who rely on money transfers as part of their daily financial lives,” commented Mr. J. Mehta, executive director at Uphold. “Uphold’s cloud-based platform also empowers those sending money [with] better options, including free foreign exchange for currency conversions and peace of mind that they can send any value, at any time, safe, secure and instantly.”


Bybit Begins Awarding Bounties for Tracing and Freezing Stolen Crypto

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has awarded a collective bounty of $4.2 million to five bounty hunters that have helped trace and freeze funds that were stolen from the exchange in a hack.

Bybit is offering a total bounty of $140 million, which is equal to 10% of the $1.4 billion that was taken in the hack, according to the company’s website called Lazarusbounty that provides information on the hack and the bounty.

“Join us on war against Lazarus,” Bybit Co-Founder and CEO Ben Zhou said in a Wednesday (Feb. 25) post on X announcing the site and referring to the hacker, Lazarus. “Industry first bounty site that shows aggregated full transparency on the sanctioned Lazarus money laundering activities.”

The site said that bounties will be awarded immediately when funds are confirmed as frozen, and that there will be bounties of 5% of the recovered funds to the entity that froze the funds and 5% to contributors who helped trace the funds.

The site also ranks involved parties like exchangers, mixers or bridges, dubbing them “good actors” or “bad actors” based on their response time and cooperation in either freezing the funds or providing updates on the funds’ movement.

“We have assigned a team to dedicate to maintain and update this website, we will not stop until Lazarus or bad actors in the industry is eliminated,” Zhou wrote in his post. “In the future we will open it up to other victims of Lazarus as well.”

Bybit said Friday (Feb. 21) that a cyberattacker stole some of its holdings, adding that the attacker was able to transfer these holdings to an unidentified address after gaining control of one of Bybit’s ethereum (ETH) cold wallets when it was executing a transfer to one of its warm wallets.

On Monday (Feb. 24), Bybit said it had replenished its reserve after the hack, conducting a fresh audit and restoring its reserve to a 1:1 ratio within 72 hours of the incident.

The attack showed that as the blockchain ecosystem grows, security challenges become more complex, PYMNTS reported Wednesday, noting that the attack was described as being likely the “largest incident ever, not just crypto.”