19/06/2025

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | JUNE 19, 2025

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US Senate passes stablecoin bill

India grants licence to Musk’s Starlink NEW DELHI: New Delhi had granted a licence to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, opening India’s “next frontier of connectivity”, according to the country’s communications minister. The launch of Starlink, which provides high-speed internet access to remote locations using low Earth orbit satellites, has sparked fierce debate in India over issues ranging from predatory pricing to spectrum allocation. Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said he held a “productive meeting”with Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of Starlink owner SpaceX. Shotwell “appreciated the licence granted to Starlink, calling it a great start to the journey”, the minister said on Tuesday on Musk-owned social media platform X. It follows two of India’s biggest telecom service providers – Jio Platforms and its rival Bharti Airtel – in March announcing deals with SpaceX to offer Starlink internet to their customers. SpaceX owner Musk has butted heads with Asia’s richest man and Jio Platforms owner Mukesh Ambani over how the satellite spectrum should be awarded. While Musk’s business interests in India are currently limited to X, the tech mogul’s electric vehicle maker Tesla is preparing its entry into the country. – AFP Netflix to stream French TV content in world first PARIS: Netflix announced yesterday a livestreaming and on-demand content agreement with French television group TF1, its first such deal with a major traditional broadcaster anywhere in the world. The service will launch in summer 2026, Netflix’s co-CEO Greg Peters told AFP, while declining to name any of the financial or other details of the tie-up with TF1. Netflix subscribers in France will get access to TF1’s five TV channels and content from the group’s own TF1+ streaming platform – all “without ever having to leave the Netflix environment” on their smart TV or other device, the US company said in a statement. On offer will be sporting events, soap operas and reality shows such as the Survivor -style Koh-Lanta . TF1 and Netflix have for years collaborated on productions like 2019’s historical drama Le Bazar de la Charite (The Bonfire of Destiny). But France’s top private broadcaster – one of Europe’s largest – has big ambitions for TF1+ to stand on its own two feet, making the more intimate tie-up with Netflix a surprise. The TF1 streaming platform aims to become the most popular free offering in France and the wider French-speaking world. “TF1+ is and will remain at the centre of our strategy,” TF1 CEO Rodolphe Belmer told AFP ahead of the announcement. Belmer insisted that the deal did not risk “cannibalisation” of TF1+ and was “truly complementary” in a media landscape of fragmenting audiences and growing on-demand viewing. On Netflix’s side, “TF1 is very good with sports, with live areas that we don’t operate in a large way right now”, said Peters, who also praised the quality of the group’s scripted programming. – AFP

WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to create a regulatory framework for American dollar-pegged cryptocurrency tokens known as stablecoins, in a watershed moment for the digital asset industry. The bill, dubbed the GENIUS Act, received bipartisan support, with several Democrats joining most Republicans to back the proposed federal rules. It passed 68-30. The House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, needs to pass its version of the bill before it heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for approval. “It is a major milestone,” said Andrew Olmem, a managing partner at law firm Mayer Brown and the former deputy director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term. “It establishes, for the first time, a regulatory regime for stablecoins, a rapidly developing financial product and industry.” Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents say that they could be used to send payments instantly. If signed into law, the stablecoin bill would require tokens to be backed by liquid assets – such as US dollars and short-term Treasury bills – and for issuers to publicly disclose the composition of their reserves on a monthly basis. The crypto industry has long pushed for lawmakers to pass legislation creating rules for digital assets, arguing that a clear framework could enable stablecoins to become more widely used. The sector spent more than US$119 million backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year’s elections and had tried to paint the issue as bipartisan. The House of Representatives passed a

o House must approve its version before legislation reaches Trump’s desk stablecoin bill last year but the Senate – in which Democrats held the majority at the time – did not take that bill up, and it died. Trump has sought to broadly overhaul US cryptocurrency policies after courting cash from the industry during his presidential campaign. Bo Hines, who leads Trump’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, has said the White House wants a stablecoin bill passed before August. Tensions on Capitol Hill over Trump’s various crypto ventures at one point threatened to derail the digital asset sector’s hope of legislation this year as Democrats have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump and his family members promoting their personal crypto projects. “In advancing these bills, lawmakers forfeited their opportunity to confront Trump’s crypto grift – the largest, most flagrant corruption in presidential history,” said Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group.

Trump’s crypto ventures include a meme coin called $TRUMP, launched in January, and a business called World Liberty Financial, a crypto company owned partly by the president. The White House has said there are no conflicts of interest present for Trump and that his assets are in a trust managed by his children. Other Democrats expressed concern that the bill would not prevent big tech companies from issuing their own private stablecoins, and argued that legislation needed stronger anti-money laundering protections and prohibitions on foreign stablecoin issuers. “A bill that turbocharges the stablecoin market, while facilitating the president’s corruption and undermining national security, financial stability, and consumer protection is worse than no bill at all,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, in May. The bill could face further changes in the House of Representatives. In a statement, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors called for “critical changes” to mitigate financial stability risks. “CSBS remains concerned with the dramatic and unsupported expansion of the authority of uninsured banks to conduct money transmission or custody activities nationwide without the approval or oversight of host state supervisors,” said Brandon Milhorn, president and CEO of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, in a statement. – Reuters

A logo is displayed over a door at the US headquarters of TikTok in Culver City, California. – REUTERSPIC

Trump extends TikTok deadline for third time WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will this week give TikTok a fresh 90-day extension to find a non-Chinese buyer, the White House said on Tuesday, the third time he has put off a threatened ban on the popular app. assurance that their data is safe and secure.” Trump, whose 2024 election campaign relied heavily on social media, has previously said he is fond of the video sharing app.

“Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape.” Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform after coming to believe it helped him win young voters’ support in the November election. Motivated by national security fears and belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on Jan 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor. The Republican president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19. – AFP

“I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok,“ Trump said in an NBC News interview last month. “If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension.” Trump said at the time that a group of purchasers was ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance “a lot of money” for the video-clip-sharing sensation’s US operations. Trump has repeatedly downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app’s US business. He is “just not motivated to do anything about TikTok”, said analyst Rob Enderle.

A federal law requiring TikTok’s sale or ban on national security grounds was due to take effect the day before Trump’s January inauguration. “President Trump will sign an additional executive order this week to keep TikTok up and running. As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “This extension will last 90 days, which the administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the