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Saudi Arabia, UAE Agree To Launch New Joint Cryptocurrency

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Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have joined together to launch a new cryptocurrency, according to UAE's national press agency WAM.

The Saudi-Emirati Coordination council, during its first meeting in Abu Dhabi, launched its Strategy of Resolve with seven initiatives in vital sectors for collaboration between both countries, including the Saudi-Emirati Pilot cryptocurrency.

The cross-border digital currency will be targeted for banks at an experimental phase. The countries aim to better understand the implications of Blockchain technology and facilitate cross-border payments. As per the press agency, the virtual currency will use a distributed database between the central banks and the participating banks from both sides.

The Saudi-Emirati Coordination council's new initiatives focus on the bilateral integration in the fields of services and financial markets, tourism, aviation, entrepreneurship, customs and security.

Apart from the new cryptocurrency, the other initiatives include "Facilitated flow of traffic at the entry ports,", "Joint platform to support SMEs," "A joint exercise to test the supply security system," and "Common Market for Civil Aviation," among others.

The Executive Committee is tasked with ensuring the implementation of the joint initiatives.

In December, National Bank of Kuwait had launched a new cross-border transactions platform called "NBK Direct Remit" using Ripple's enterprise blockchain network RippleNet to enable faster and secure real-time cross-border transactions for its clients.

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Inflation data from the U.S. garnered maximum attention this week on the economics front, along with the interest rate decision by the European Central Bank. Read our stories to find out how these two key events are set to influence monetary policy in the months ahead. Other main news from the U.S. were the release of the minutes of the latest Fed policy session and the jobless claims data. Elsewhere, the interest rate decision by the Bank of Canada was also in focus.

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