Spain Is Considering To Allow Mortgage Payments In Cryptocurrency
According to a Spanish newspaper, the lawmakers in the country are considering a proposal enabling mortgage payments with cryptocurrencies.
The Law would also include a raft of other measures to legitimize crypto, blockchain, and artificial intelligence technologies. Including tax incentives for firms operating within these sectors.
Spain looks to crypto for finance reform
The ruling People’s Party (PP) in Spain seeks to promote the use of crypto and other transformative technologies. Under the proposal, the PP intends to modernize banking infrastructure and encourage companies to adopt transformative technologies in their day-to-day operations.
It proposes to allow their use for the morgage payment by homeowners, but also so that companies in the real estate sector and investment funds can use their own cryptocurrency to to be able to buy groups of mortgages from banks in securitization processes.
These are two of the measures promoted by the popular in their bill for the digital transformation of Spain with which they seek to establish the foundations of this transformation, facilitate this process for companies and regulate the use of disruptive technologies.
In addition to its introduction into the mortgage system – it also proposes that banks use Blockchain technology to manage mortgages, insurance and speed up compensation – it proposes to extend it to insurance policies, with ‘smart contracts’ with conditions depending on the procedures to be followed, the verification processes and potential incidents.
But not only in the financial sector, since the political party wants to reflect by law the use of Blockchain technology in the food chain, with a verification assigned to a product label to have proof of origin, or Health, to ensure the traceability of medical decisions and processes, and patient ownership of their medical records.
Tax reductions for innovation
Likewise, the PP raises a tax reduction for those digital technology companies to favor this type of innovation, by including them within the companies benefiting from the deduction for research and development activities.
This deduction, of 25% of expenses incurred, and even higher in the event that expenses exceed the average of the two previous years, would rise by five more points, according to the PP proposal for two years.
Companies that use cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology will also be able to take advantage of the deductions provided for technological innovation, which enables a full fee deduction under certain conditions.
It is not the only tax reduction proposed by the PP, which proposes to include in this type of deductions companies that incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in software projects and also those that use civil aircraft piloted by remote control, also known as drones.
Regulation on drones and extension of the ‘Sandbox’
In this case, the PP is committed to a specific regulation for its use in the commercial and industrial sector , for last-mile uses, in the universal postal service, the transport of goods, and also enables municipal regulation and its use in the improvement of own functions.
Likewise, it considers it necessary to extend the regulation approved by Congress for the financial sector on sandbox -testing bench for innovative projects, with specific regulation and control-, to other sectors that may present disruptive ideas or technologies, and mentions other sectors such as Health (Primary Care), pharmacy, the postal sector, energy, security or mobility.
Facial and biometric recognition
Regarding Artificial Intelligence, the PP anticipates an ethical framework for intelligent robotics , which it entrusts to the Government at the proposal of a group of experts with the participation of the private sector, and also for Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.
In this sense, the popular establish the obligation to provide clear information on the use, characteristics and properties of products with AI, and also bet on allowing the use of facial and biometric recognition for personal identification.
Likewise, the legislative proposal also covers obligations for so-called connected devices (Internet of Things), cloud computing – it proposes including cloud service provider companies as electro-intensive consumers to access favorable treatment on their electricity bill – and also the connected vehicle.
Will Spain make the skeptics listen?
El Salvador’s Bitcoin legal tender bill was a revolutionary act demonstrating at a national level that Bitcoin and crypto have more use than speculation alone.
Then again, El Salvador, with its population of just 6.5 million, is still a small player on the global stage. Meaning, the impact of the Bitcoin bill was always going to be limited.
However, pro-crypto moves by Spain, which ranks 14th in the world by GDP, will undoubtedly send a more rousing point to the skeptics.
The likes of the U.S, among others, continue to drag their feet on affirmative crypto legal frameworks. Recently, U.S Senator Elizabeth Warren went on the offensive by regurgitating played-out arguments on environmental damage and criminality.
In making her arguments, she, like others before her, only made clear her ignorance of the technology. Which in turn highlights the foolishness of those uneducated on the matter influencing legislation which affects us all.
All eyes are on Spain in anticipation of unfolding events.
