Retail

The Bank of Thailand has begun pilot testing for its central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

For decades, gold has been considered a safe haven when it comes to inflationary periods and protecting your savings at a fairly low risk. The price of the precious metal has increased by about 600% over the course of the last ~20 years, surpassing the returns of indexes such as the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial and many others.

The popularity of cryptocurrency cards is growing rapidly. As reported by Visa, the total transaction volume in the first quarter accounts for 70% of the total volume of 2021. A further increase is expected.

Bitcoin appears to be stuck in a downtrend at the end of Q3 2021. However, retail investors are very interested in the flagship cryptocurrency, so the year could still end bullish.

JP Morgan is finally offering bitcoin investment options to its customers after years of aversion to crypto investing, and is reportedly promoting its bitcoin product to its retail customers. However, the bank should be prepared for competition from cryptocurrency exchanges and similar banks.

As online shopping is one of the commonly used online activities internationally, the global retail e-Commerce sales globally are expected to increase to about $6.55 by 2022. However, the industry is still vulnerable to fraudsters, so a great share of profits is expected to be lost due to the vulnerability.

Ethereum industry has been losing whales as the number of big holders dropped to a 3-year low. Instead, it seems to be invaded by retail investors most especially since the middle of 2020.

The European Commission (EC) approved on Thursday September 24, a digital finance package, including a retail payments plan, digital finance strategy and legislative proposals on cryptocurrency and digital resilience, for a booming European Union (EU) financial sector that gives customers access to state-of-the-art financial goods and services.

The People’s Bank of China is not going to expand trials of its CBDC to large volume transactions. For now, at least.