Amex extend their reach with new business account and debit card
Amex have launched a digital Business Checking account with Amex debit card in its new digital checking account designed for US-based SMEs. Specific features include:

• new Business Checking customers will earn a USD 300 deposit as a welcome bonus.
• benefit from an APY of 1.1% on balances up to USD 500,000.
• USD 0 monthly maintenance fee and no minimum balance requirement.

American Express has also partnered with MoneyPass to offer a network of 37,000 fee-free ATMs to Business Checking customers for ATM cash withdrawals and balance inquiries. 

In 2022, Business Checking customers will be able to earn Membership Rewards points and redeem them for deposits into their Business Checking account.

American Express are linking their Business Checking accounts with existing American Express credit cards which will come with a debit card.

Amex are slowly but surely becoming a full bank in specific areas they choose to enter.

 

Central Bank Digital Currencies awareness and worries increases

The analysis and reporting on CBDCs is growing:

• PYMTS.com reports in their article on “India’s Mulling of CBDC Spotlights US Digital Dollar Lag” that:
  • Around the world, major economies have been moving, in some cases quickly, to embrace and launch central bank digital currencies
  • And yet, the United States, relatively speaking, lags the pack
  • While India is moving ahead to explore its version of the CBDC, even while it eschews cryptocurrencies issued by private players.
• Hackernoon.com with a wonderful drawing of the Titanic sinking:
  • 
  • have an article entitled CBDCs - The Folly of Digital Fiat in which Christian Kameir points out that “it has become increasingly obvious that policy and design discussions under the label of CBDCs do not indeed address the most obvious problems that users - and those left out - of legacy financial systems, experience.”
• The Business Times article today: Explains: What are stablecoins and CBDCs? In which they report that “CBDCs have caught the attention of lawmakers around the world, who are urging regulatory frameworks for this broad class of digital currencies.”
• The only two conclusions we can make at present are that: 1) CBDCs are coming in the next decade – sooner rather later, and 2) corporates in the B2C space will need to work out how to handle CBDCs in their treasury management operations.

 

Selling the new global tax rules

Reuters report today that, “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she expected U.S. tech giants to broadly support the reallocation of taxing rights agreed to by nearly 140 countries as part of a broader deal on global taxes, saying the impact on U.S. companies should be minor.”

This seems rather optimistic given that the tech giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebool/Meta have to pay way more tax in the Pillar 1 of the tax deal negotiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It calls for a global minimum corporate tax of 15% by 2023

 

Tradeteq Connect becomes a new trade risk distribution channel for Commerzbank, AKA and Texel 

Tradeteq, a technology provider for bank asset distribution, together with Commerzbank AG (Commerzbank), AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft mbH (AKA), and Texel Finance Limited (the Texel Group) have announced that following a successful proof of concept phase, Tradeteq Connect, an expansion of the firm’s existing platform to support distributing bank risk resulting from trade products such as letters of credit (LCs) and guarantees, has been implemented by Commerzbank AG, AKA, and the Texel Group and shall become the new technology standard for trade asset distribution. 

By establishing this new technological link between them, Commerzbank, AKA, and the Texel Group form the nucleus of the Tradeteq Connect network of grantor and participant banks as well as insurance carriers and brokers. Additional banks and credit insurers will now be selectively invited to join Tradeteq Connect. 

Tradeteq Connect provides trading automation, limit system, and network-as-a-service for participants to trade within their own private network with counterparties they choose. Where previously this process relied on spreadsheets, Tradeteq Connect is a single system that can handle the full distribution chain end-to-end in one place. 

Nikolaus Giesbert, Divisional Board Member Institutionals at Commerzbank, commented: 

“In line with our published strategy, we continuously seek to automate and digitise our processes. Our collaboration with Tradeteq will allow us to achieve these goals and thereby to reach a broader, deeper and more differentiated investor base for trade finance risk.”