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] South African President Jacob Zuma announced that he resigned on Feb. 14 after African National Congress leaders swore to force him to leave his post. On the same day, the police raided the house of the richest Gupta family in South Africa. Zuma became president in 2009. His controversial corruption scandal related to the Gupta brothers; Atul, Rajesh and Ajay, was labeled "Zupta", and was one of the reasons he was forced to resign because he inflicted severe damage to one of the biggest savings in the world. 39; Africa.

Zupta would have disappeared billions of Rands from government institutions orchestrating the award of government contracts in offshore shell companies. These companies channeled these funds to various bank accounts hidden around the world. The misappropriation of public funds and assets by Zupta has finally attracted the attention of global regulators who sparked a wave of multi-jurisdictional investigations into individuals, multinational corporations and banks with suspicious flows of banks into Africa. South, UAE, China, India, United States and Canada.

These banks; including ABSA, the South African branch of Bank of Baroda, followed by the State Bank of India, were forced to close bank accounts related to Zupta, in effect domino, to alleviate legal problems related to the money laundering.

South African banks adopt blockchain technology

Following the Zupta scandal, several South African financial institutions have adopted the blockchain technology called Springblock, which they hope to adopt for all financial transactions, "said Farzam Ehsani, chairman of the South African Financial Blockchain Consortium. The State Bank of India, the largest Indian bank involved in the Zupta scandal, has announced that it will implement the Bankchain blockchain in collaboration with Primechain Technologies in several areas of the bank, including Know Your Customer / Anti- Money Laundering (KYC / AML). ) syndication of syndicated loans / loans, trade finance, asset register and asset re-mortgage, secured documents, cross-border payments, peer-to-peer payments and blockchain security checks

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"Primechain Technologies is a blockchain startup in India.Bankchain is a member driven – thirty-two banks – the community has no separate legal existence.Primechain Technologies collects all member fees to develop blockchain technologies for member banks to reduce overhead, process transactions faster, ensure the security of the banking system, use authorized and highly optimized blockchains to facilitate the sharing of information between banking institutions. " Rohas explains Nagpal, chief architect of the Blockchain at Primechain Technologies

Ron Quaranta, chairman of Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, predicts that blockchain technology will be widely used in the global financial industry. "In the future, virtually all functions of global financial markets will be affected by the advent of blockchain technology," he estimates

The Reserve Bank of South Africa is testing the blockchain

(SARB) established the Financial Technology Program, whose main objectives are to monitor and analyze developments and to help decision-makers formulate frameworks in response to these innovations emerging. The program also aims to review SARB's position on private cryptocurrencies to inform an appropriate policy framework and regulatory regime. In addition, it will launch the Khokha project, which will experiment Ethereum-based distributed registry technologies in partnership with ConsenSys to replicate interbank transfers on Quorum, a platform built by JP Morgan.

South Africa has been relatively progressive on the subject of cryptocurrencies. SARB issued a 2014 Cryptocurrency position paper and, in July 2017, began working with Bankymoon, a blockchain-based solution provider, to create a "balanced" approach to cryptocurrency regulation. There is currently no specific law or regulation regarding the use of cryptocurrencies, which are not recognized as legal tender.

"Lack of AML / CFT regulation of virtual money providers around the world exacerbates US Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker at the Anti-Money Laundering Conference 39; money and financial crimes of the Association of Financial Markets and Securities, said: "We are currently one of the leading Worldwide, with Japan and Australia which regulate these activities for the purposes of AML / CFT, we need many more countries to do the same, and we have made it a priority in our international activities, "he adds .

Although the South African Revenue Service (SARS) has indicated that it intends to track down and tax cryptocurrency transactions without any court decisions or guidelines that focus on processing If the fiscal transactions yptocurrency, it will be difficult for the tax authorities to hold individuals accountable.

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