The Bank of England said it would keep the UK's financial system open to foreign institutions after Brexit, FT.com reports. European-headquartered investment banks that currently operate in London as a branch under the so-called EU passport will be able to apply for a regulatory status much like that enjoyed by their US, Swiss and Japanese rivals, the BoE said. It is part of a package of measures over how it will authorise foreign banks, insurers and clearing houses as the UK leaves the European bloc. Two cryptocurrency exchanges were hit by problems yesterday, FT.com reports, noting that following a cyber attack, Yapian, which operates the Youbit exchange in South Korea, suspended trading on Tuesday, causing it to lose 17 per cent of its assets. Meanwhile, San Francisco-based Coinbase, one of the world's most popular exchanges for trading digital currencies, said it was investigating its staff and contractors after a sudden surge in prices for "bitcoin cash", a cryptocurrency using the same technology as bitcoin. Reinsurer Swiss Re revealed that the cost of natural and man-made disasters over 2017 was more than double that of 2016. Insured losses due to disasters reached US$136 billion over this year, the third highest on record and well above the ten-year average of US$58 billion. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in the Caribbean and the US, earthquakes in Mexico and the Californian wildfires all contributed to the cost. The report comes as reinsurance contracts (many of which fall due for renewal on January 1) are being re-negotiated. UK digital challenger Tandem has been given regulatory approval to take over loss-making Harrods Bank, reports Finextra. If it can pull it off, the buy-out would grant Tandem access to a full banking licence and 10,000 savings and mortgage customers. The digital bank previously failed in an attempt to launch a fully-licensed bank after losing out on at £29 million investment from Chinese conglomerate Sanpower. With multiple consumer surveys indicating that, a month out from its start date, Brits have limited awareness of the new data sharing regime. Finextra reports that Barclays is among the first of the UK's big banks seeking to publicly educate its customers on the issue. Reminding customers that they are not obliged to share their data, the bank warns against the use of screen-scraping tools which require customer IDs and log-ins and instead points to its own APIs as a safer means of engagement.