Digital Currency

By Othman Darwish Life insurance is contractual agreement between an individual (insurance policyholder) and insurer company, where the insurer obligates to pay  the benefits in exchange for premium upon the death of the policyholder. Life insurance industry  is a big business, as per the Chicago Fed Letter (2013), the U.S life insurance companies own more than $5.5 trillion, it provides an important funding to different sectors in the financial market through their investments. Fundamentally, life insurers make their profits by two methods; one method is the premiums paid by their customers or policyholders in timely basis, the other method is by investing those premiums in different investment instruments. Life insurance companies products are designed to meet two types of long-term demands; the first that results from the customers claims (the beneficiaries) due to loss of life, and the second results from customers seeking to return their payments (annuities). Acc...

By Othman Darwish The settlement process is defined as a legal transition during the time span between trade and settlement, a purchaser’s rights are purely contractual and thus personal, and only after settlement, they become proprietary, terminating counterparty risk. Securities settlement usually follow the delivery of securities against ( and in the same time ) the transfer of fund , this is termed as DvP in which a linkage between securities and fund transfer occur simultaneously to ensure delivery happen if and only if corresponding payment occurs. The abbreviation of T+1,T+2 ,and T + 3 donate the day settlement occurs on a transaction , if investor buys shares stock on Monday , then Monday is the transaction date , if the transaction has T + 3 settlement date ,the settlement date is Thursday ,T +2 would be on Wednesday , the settlement date is the day ownership transfers , settlement periods among securities vary ,stock and mutual funds are T + 3 ,bonds and s...

B y Othman Darwish Introduction According to the report prepared by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the central banks of the Group of Ten countries in 1997: "Settlement is the actual transfer of funds between the payer's bank and payee's bank. Settlement discharges the obligation of the payer bank to the payee bank in respect of the transfer. Settlement is irrevocable and unconditional and is described as final settlement" . Thus, settlement systems are used to transfer large value payments between financial institutions, aiming to streamline funds transfer in secure, effective and less risk manner. As mentioned by the Bank of Finland Studies (2005), two main risks the participants in the settlement systems expose to; the credit risk and liquidity risk. Credit risk takes place when a defaulted counterparty of the payment "The Debtor" cannot meet the obligation of the full value of the transaction either when settlement date ...

  B y Othman Darwish Nowadays Bitcoin has proven a great success as a virtual currency. With its innovated payment network protocols, as open and trustless environment, that is protected by cryptography, users of Bitcoin enjoy transacting and executing their payments in highly secure, fast and with less fees compared to traditional payment systems. The decentralize nature of the Bitcoin payment network, where there is no need for intermediaries or third parties, plays an important role in its success, in fact this shapes the  innovation that the Bitcoin payment network is all about, and makes it competing alternative with the traditional currency. Yet, when it comes to Bitcoin Exchanges markets, where the user could buy or sell Bitcoins with other currencies like USD, EURO or AltCoin, the exchange has a single point of failure since it acts as intermediary between buyer and seller, and thus the trustless decentralized core feature of Bitcoin payment network is vanished...