The European Commission has released its "Fintech Action plan" - a 23 step plan to promote the digital transformation of the financial services sector, reports Finextra. The steps include the creation of an EU fintech laboratory (where European and national authorities will engage with tech developers in a non-commercial space), a best-practices blueprint for regulatory sandboxes and substantial crowdfunding reforms. After testing blockchain technology on its interbank messaging network, Swift says it needs to make more progress before it can handle the daily cross-border payments between the world's banks, reports the FT. Swift undertook a "proof of concept" test of blockchain to reconcile international payments between the accounts of 34 banks, which it said "went well" but nevertheless highlighted "operational challenges" that banks would face if they switched to blockchain. The banks testing it had to create sub-ledgers to avoid confidential information being seen by rival banks. Swift estimated that, if blockchain were rolled out to all its member banks, 100,000 sub-ledgers would need to be created, "extremely unwieldy to main, upgrade or configure". But Swift added that, once the technology was ready, it would also be ready to roll it out. A VPN comparison service has reviewed listings on the so-called 'dark web' and concluded that the price for someone's entire personal identity is around £820, reports Finextra. However, the survey by Top10VPN.com found that individual pieces of financial information can be bought by fraudsters for much lower prices. Bank details cost around £168, Paypal logins with a healthy credit balance about £280, passport details about £40 - and online shopping accounts such as Amazon or Tesco as little as £5.