Abu Dhabi Financial Center Partners With Solana

Hi NoRamp Community,

Daily News:

1) Mastercard's Game Lets Cardholders Win Tickets Via NFT Pass

2) Abu Dhabi Financial Center Partners With Solana

3) NEAR Foundation Applies For .near Top-Level Domain

4) FIS Debuts Interoperable Platform for Sharing Bank Data

5) Jennifer Taylor Joins Plaid As Company’s First President

Mastercard's Game Lets Cardholders Win Tickets Via NFT Pass:

• Mastercard has introduced an NFT-based soccer trivia game for the 2023/2024 UEFA Champions League season, allowing fans to win match tickets by demonstrating their knowledge of the league. The game will start 30 minutes before Tuesday night matches, beginning February 13.

• Participants can join the trivia by collecting Mastercard-branded NFT passes on the "Pass to Priceless" platform, with the NFTs being minted on the Polygon network. The trivia covers Champions League history and statistics, with winners earning match tickets and points towards a season-long leaderboard.

• The top scorer by the semi-finals on April 30 will win tickets to the Champions League Final at Wembley Stadium. The trivia contest is available to Mastercard cardholders in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Brazil, running until the June 1 final.

Abu Dhabi Financial Center Partners With Solana:

• Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has partnered with the Solana Foundation to enhance distributed ledger technology (DLT) development, focusing on exploring opportunities within ADGM’s DLT Foundations Regulations, though specific measures were not detailed.

• ADGM, an international financial center that follows English law, introduced the world's first purpose-built regulatory framework for blockchain foundations, Web3 entities, and decentralized autonomous organizations in November. The partnership aims to expand ADGM's ongoing projects in the financial technology sector.

• The collaboration comes amid ADGM's rapid expansion, including significant investments in the digital assets space and welcoming major crypto firms and initiatives. Solana Foundation also reports a surge in interest and developer activity, despite a recent blockchain outage.

NEAR Foundation Applies For .near Top-Level Domain:

• The NEAR Foundation is collaborating with D3 Global to apply for a .near top-level domain (TLD) during the upcoming ICANN application window, aiming to integrate NEAR protocol's Web3 capabilities with the broader internet infrastructure.

• D3 brings extensive experience in operating TLDs, having successfully registered and managed over 300 TLDs, including notable ones like .xyz and .inc, leveraging their deep registry-level expertise and industry relationships.

• Securing the .near TLD would enable the use of unified domain names for websites, email, and wallet addresses within the NEAR ecosystem, facilitating verification across platforms and promoting the development of decentralized applications (dapps) that bridge Web3 identity with existing internet services, potentially accelerating mainstream adoption of blockchain technology.

FIS Debuts Interoperable Platform for Sharing Bank Data:

• FIS has launched an open banking platform, FIS Open Access, allowing customers of its clients to share their banking data with third-party financial apps and services by integrating with data networks Akoya, Envestnet, Yodlee, MX, and Plaid.

• The platform is designed to facilitate secure and controlled access and sharing of financial data among consumers, enabling them to manage their finances through third-party apps with full control over what information is shared and with whom, in response to the accelerating shift towards open banking and in anticipation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) proposed Personal Financial Data Rights rule.

• FIS's initiative aims to enhance the banking experience by providing transparency to banks on where and how their customers are sharing financial data, supporting the broader adoption of open banking and aligning with consumer trends towards utilizing third-party financial management apps, thereby helping traditional banks and credit unions retain and grow their customer base.

Jennifer Taylor Joins Plaid As Company’s First President:

• Plaid, a leading open banking fintech based in San Francisco, has named Jennifer Taylor as its first president. Taylor comes from Cloudflare, where she was Chief Product Officer for seven years, and has previously held strategic product roles at Salesforce, Meta, and Adobe.

• As Plaid's president, Taylor will be responsible for leading the company's technology and product teams, bringing her extensive experience in scaling products to support Plaid's growth. Her appointment is part of Plaid's broader strategy to expand its services, which enable consumers to connect their bank accounts to fintech applications through APIs for open banking and payments.

• The addition of Taylor and Eric Hart, who joined as Plaid's first Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in October, signals potential preparations for an initial public offering (IPO). This follows Plaid's Series D funding extension in August 2021, which contributed to a $425 million cash injection, valuing the company at $13.5 billion.

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