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Nine of the largest investment banks have partnered with a block chain startup to integrate the block chain into financial services. Barclays, BBVA, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, State Street, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS all formed a partnership with a block chain oriented firm to create industry standards for using block chain technology in banking. The initiative is led by New York and London startup R3, whose CEO David Rutter spent 32-years on Wall Street. Financial Times has reported Goldman Sachs have also partnered with R3. The block chain is a major aspect of Bitcoin technology, functioning […]

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Want to get caught up real quick on the history of hacking? This article on the 10 most notorious hacking groups of all time will help you. Don't forget to check out our article on the 10 most notorious hackers of all time. 

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Researchers have discovered significant, clandestine cyber attacks in countries across three continents where more than a dozen compromised Cisco routers have been found operating in the wild.

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Check out this art technology installation that creates music using live bitcoin market data.

Bitcoin price is traveling under a bad sign. The possibility of strong decline from the current chart position is high but, thankfully, mitigated by established support below. Will the support hold? We cannot be sure and focus on building a short position regardless of where the bottom may be. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3 hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using the code CCN29. Bitcoin Price Analysis Time of analysis: 15h41 UTC Bitfinex 1-Hour Chart From the analysis pages of xbt.social, earlier today: Price has […]

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Nine of the world's biggest banks on Tuesday threw their weight behind blockchain, the technology that powers bitcoin.

Barclays, BBVA, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, State Street, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS have all formed a partnership to draw up industry standards and protocols for using the blockchain in banking.

The partnership is being led by R3, a startup with offices in New York and London headed by David Rutter, the former CEO of ICAP Electronic Broking and a 32-year veteran of Wall Street.

Rutter told Business Insider that the plan is to build the "fabric" of blockchain technology for banking, as well as develop commercial applications for banks and financial firms.

He told Business Insider that other banks have already signed up to the partnership, but the timing of the release means they could not be named. The Financial Times reports that Goldman Sachs are also involved in the partnership.

The blockchain is the software that both powers and regulates cryptocurrency bitcoin. In its most basic form, it records ownership of bitcoin — money — and transactions — one person paying another.

Transactions are signed off by the parties involved using the software, then added to the blockchain, a long string of code that records all activity.

Once other transactions are added on in front of an exchange, the transaction is stuck there forever and can't be changed, in the same way you can't change a brick once it's been built into a wall.

The software cuts out the need for a "trusted middleman" to sit in between parties in a transaction as it acts as that middleman. This makes transactions quicker, cheaper, and easier when compared to the current systems banks use. 

Banks are therefore keen to see if it can be adapted for use with traditional currency, rather than just bitcoin.

The blockchain uses open ledger technology, meaning all of these transactions are free for anyone to look at and not stashed in some private data centre in Canary Wharf. Anyone can theoretically check to see if someone's using stolen bitcoin and this adds a level of transparency to the system.

Top banks including Barclays, Citi, Santander, and UBS have all expressed interest in the blockchain but this is the first time the banks have worked together on a project.

Rutter says he began approaching banks around 15 months ago after visiting around 30 blockchain and bitcoin companies he was considering investing in.

He says: "The lightbulb went off that distributed ledger technology could be to finance what the internet was to media."

Rutter says R3 has drawn up a "wish list" of what its banking partners want to use blockchain technology for, which covers "everything from issuance, to clearing and settlement and smart contracts, where the code is the contract and it saves on back office costs."

Barclays' Derek White recently told Business Insider that the bank has identified 45 potential uses for blockchain technology, while Santander told Business insider it is looking at 25 uses.

He says: "I think broadly speaking we'll be able to demonstrate within 1 to 2 years that the technology is fit for purpose. How long it will take to roll that out and integrate into existing systems is not something I know enough about to comment on.

"Our goal is to have some real examples of how this could work within the next year — so really fast."

As part of the partnership, banks are investing in R3. Rutter said: "I can’t reveal that but it’s been reported that it’s several million. From my prospective of having the banks involved, the human element is more valuable."

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NOW WATCH: Animated map shows where all the world's McDonald's are

Ledger, the first ever peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to cryptocurrencies such as a bitcoin, launched today.

By Leila Abboud

PARIS (Reuters) - Apple Inc's move to make ad-blocking software available on the iPhone is a double-barrelled effort to boost the health of the so-called app economy, while undermining arch rival Google Inc , which dominates the $120 billion online advertising market.

The new version of the iPhone operating system, to be released Wednesday, will for the first time allow customers to download third-party software that strips out marketing messages such as banner and video ads when people surf the web via the Safari browser. 

A slew of ad-blocking apps for iPhones are expected to launch this week. But Apple's new approach will not affect advertising inside applications such as Facebook , casual games like those from Supercell or King , or even Apple's own apps.

Apple is in effect nudging big brands to shift spending to apps, rather than traditional online ads where Google leads.

Ad-blocking software has been growing rapidly on desktop computers, led by early adopters among tech-savvy young people, but until now was rare on mobiles.

Some 200 million people used ad blockers last year, up 40 percent from a year earlier, resulting in $22 billion in lost advertising revenue, according to a study by Adobe and PageFair, an anti ad-blocking tech company.

Although only about 5 percent of Internet users globally use the tools, they are especially popular in Europe. In Germany and Poland, for instance, the figure is above 30 percent.

Broad adoption of ad-blocking would bring a new set of headaches for online publishers, many of whom are already struggling with plummeting ad prices.

SHARED REVENUE

In a nod to publishers' concerns, Apple will also on Wednesday launch a new app, called News, which will allow media companies to bypass blockers to serve their own ads or let Apple sell ads and share the revenue.

Google, too, could take a hit from Apple's making ad-blocking mainstream, if its own search advertising, as well as the banner ads it manages for publishers through its DoubleClick unit, were regularly blocked by a significant portion of web surfers.

Apple has not publicly explained why it decided to allow ad blockers on its mobile phones, but Chief Executive Tim Cook gave a hint in June when he criticized internet companies for violating people's privacy to boost ad revenue.

"They're gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it," Cook said in a speech. "We think that's wrong. And it's not the kind of company that Apple wants to be."

Ad-blocking tools should help web pages load much faster on mobiles, as they strip out so-called scripts and trackers that are used to serve up the ads. Some early pilots have shown media outlets like Vice and the New York Times loading twice as fast.

Surfing the web with fewer ads will also mean people will consume fewer megabytes of their mobile data plans.

"Ultimately Apple wants there to be a better consumer experience on mobile and lots of ads on smartphones are really intrusive," said Danielle Levitas of research firm App Annie.

"And there is an added benefit that this move will hurt their competitors more than them."

ARMS RACE

Media companies are groping for answers, sparking an arms race between ad-blocking companies and anti-ad blocking companies such as PageFair and Sourcepoint that try to disarm the systems for website owners.

Some like U.S. broadcaster NBC will not allow people using ad blockers to watch videos on their sites, while newspapers the Guardian and the Washington Post are prodding people using ad blockers to sign up for subscriptions.

Apple's new policy could also force publishers who don't already have them to develop dedicated iPhone apps, rather than relying on mobile-friendly websites.

German broadcasters ProSieben and RTL and newspaper publisher Axel Springer have filed lawsuits against Eyeo, the German company that makes Adblock Plus, the  most popular adblocker for desktops. They have lost two early court cases, although appeals are pending.

Apple's move will open a new front in the fight. Eyeo put its free iOS and Android apps on the market last Tuesday, and others include 1Blocker, Blockr and Crystal.

A spokesman for ProSieben declined comment on Apple's move but said the TV company was "looking into several technical alternatives to bypass AdBlocker software."

Roi Carthy, chief marketing officer for Shine, an Israeli start-up that sells ad-blocking technology to telecom carriers, said that over time Apple could even try to play an enforcement role by setting standards for advertising in apps.

"Since Apple controls what appears in the App Store, it could try to push developers to clean up the ad formats, to make them lighter or smaller," Carthy said.

"But Apple will not cripple ads in apps - they have an interest in maintaining the ecosystem where the bread and butter is monetization via third-party ad platforms."

(Additional reporting by Harro Ten Wolde in Frankfurt; Editing by David Holmes and Jonathan Weber)

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Nine of the largest investment banks are planning to develop common standards for blockchain technology in an effort to broaden its use across financial services, The Financial Times reports. The banks – Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, State Street, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), BBVA and UBS – will fund a startup called R3, formed by a New York-based group of trading and technology executives. The banks will jointly contribute several millions of dollars, according to a person familiar with the talks. The funds are expected to go to a forthcoming Series A capital raising for R3. The project will be led by R3 Founder and Managing Partner David Rutter, who served as CEO of […]

The post Nine Top Global Banks Pool Resources to Fund R3 to Develop Digital Currency Standards appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

 BTCChina, China’s original bitcoin exchange run by Bobby Lee, has rebranded to BTCC. “We’re excited to introduce a new logo and identity that modernizes and reinvigorates the BTCC experience,” said Samson Mow, BTCC’s Chief Operating Officer in a release. “The new BTCC logo retains some original elements as a nod to our heritage, but also conveys a bold… Read More

Société Générale's group legal director has called out for the establishment of an international bitcoin regulatory framework.

Legendary Internet pioneer Nicholas Negroponte, a founder of the MIT Media Lab and the One Laptop per Child initiative (OLPC), gave a controversial talk at the Scaling Bitcoin workshop in Montreal. The Scaling Bitcoin workshop has been focused on how to safely improve the scalability and decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, and included many technical talks on current issues such as the block-size debate and proposed enhancements such as lightning networks. But Negroponte chose to keep away from these technical implementation details and focus on the big picture, the “raison d’être” of Bitcoin, its political dimension, and its implications for the evolution of society, with a high-level approach similar to that of his 1995 book “Being Digital” on the […]

The post Bitcoin Must Be About the Mission Rather than the Money, Says MIT Media Lab Founder Nicholas Negroponte at Scaling Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Credit those who are trying to bring the transparency and security of the block chain to the chaotic financial markets. They recognize the need for a reliable mechanism to prevent the type of disaster visited upon the credit default swaps (CDS) market this past weekend. A cadre of financial institutions agreed in principle to a $1.87 billion settlement for allegedly conspiring to muzzle competition in the CDS market. The complete story behind this record settlement could take years to unravel. U.S. and European regulators are still investigating. In the meantime, the growing chorus of block chain advocates in the financial […]

The post $1.87 Billion Credit Default Swaps Settlement Strengthens Need For Block Chain Transparency appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCChina has a new name: BTCC.

Bitcoin has gone from a hacker plaything to a mainstream financial instrument accepted in coffee shops. 

But Wall Street doesn't care about the cryptocurrency. It is the technology behind it - the so-called blockchain - which gets finance executives really excited. 

Bitcoin is a digital currency, the value of which fluctuates wildly. It has caught the eye of regulators, with New York Department of Financial Services publishing this summer publishing a framework for regulating digital currency firms.

Blockchain is technology that underpins bitcoin, and it could have a huge impact on how Wall Street will operate in coming years.  

Blockchain is a distributed ledger through which each transaction is tracked and recorded, eliminating ambiguity on pricing and ownership. 

“None of our products are dependent on bitcoin as a cryptocurrency,” Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, told Business Insider. “We build solutions on top of any distributed ledger whether it's the Bitcoin blockchain or a private network."

Masters previously spent decades at JPMorgan, and her new company is one of several that is seeking to use blockchain technology to help build secure settlement systems for assets. 

The company's looking to make use of blockchain technology extends from small, startups such to big banks: Masters' former employer JPMorgan for example is working internally to develop blockchain technology, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Attendee lists at recent industry events serve as a testament to how seriously big banks take the technology. Executives from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Fidelity have been present. 

Exchanges are interested too. At the Coindesk consensus conference September 10 in New York, Nasdaq chief information officer Brad Peterson told attendees he expects the exchange to start implementing technology to clear trades, among other functions.

Venture capital executives and bankers said they believe a big influx of capital is coming for blockchain, which has the potential to disrupt various elements of finance and transaction execution.

Lately, industry cheerleaders have pointed to businesses including loan syndication, land titles and property records, and clearing trades as potential uses of the technology. 

Speakers at the event September 10, including Masters, said they believed blockchain technology might catch on faster in other countries where regulators are quicker to adapt to new technologies.  

"Regulators don't know how to deal with it," said Erik Gordon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. "We've got to get regulatory consistency to get into the mainstream."

Even this early into blockchain’s introduction to Wall Street, budding industry experts are bullish on the technology’s potential.

"The upside is enormous,” Nasdaq’s Peterson told event attendees during the discussion.  

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NOW WATCH: We got our hands on Donald Trump's failed 1989 board game and it's bizarre

By Bernie Woodall and Joseph White

DETROIT - (Reuters) - Negotiators for the United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles continued bargaining on Tuesday over wages and benefits for about 40,000 U.S. workers as the union delayed calling for strikes at the company's most profitable operations.

The two sides said they agreed early Tuesday to extend their old contract, which expired at 12:01 a.m. EDT, "on an hour-by-hour basis." The UAW had still not called for walkouts as of 7:30 a.m. as workers started reporting for morning shifts in the U.S. Midwest.

The decision to extend the contract indicates the two sides are making progress on complicated pay and benefit issues. Neither FCA nor the UAW issued comments on details of the talks Tuesday morning.

UAW officials could direct members to stop work at any time if talks hit an impasse.

At issue are proposals to overhaul a two-tier pay system the UAW wants eliminated and to restructure company health plans to curb rising costs, people familiar with the process said.

The UAW wants FCA to agree to raise wages for more senior workers, who make about $28 per hour, and to reduce or eliminate the disparity for more recently hires, whose hourly pay tops out at $19.28.

FCA Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne has said he wants to eliminate the two-tier wage system, but he has suggested base wages be set lower than the current top tier. He wants to offer union workers more in the form of profit-sharing or bonuses when FCA's earnings are high.

At FCA, about 45 percent of the hourly UAW workers earn lower-tier wages.

The UAW has at least three options.

It could call a companywide strike or stage limited walkouts that could cripple FCA's operations without forcing hefty payments to workers from union strike funds. It could also opt to continue extending the talks.

The terms of any deal with Fiat Chrysler would set the pattern for subsequent labor agreements at General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co , the UAW has said.

FCA's U.S. operations have had an $8-to-$10-an-hour labor cost advantage over Ford, where 28 percent of the UAW workers are in the lower-tier wage group, and GM, where 20 percent are in that tier.

Ford and GM on Monday agreed with the UAW to extend their current contracts, the union and the companies said.

(Reporting by Joe White; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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BNP Paribas Fortis has denied it is gearing up to enter the bitcoin space as a digital vault provider.

You’ve heard of open source networks. Now get ready for “Open Source Partying,” courtesy of Tom and Gary’s Decentralized Dance Party. Partying is nothing new, but the power of social media, crowdfunding, and cryptocurrency are making it happen in a new way. And the cryptocurrency evangelist Drew Glover, AKA Tom, happens to run BitNational, Canada's largest bitcoin ATM network. This week, they have expanded beyond their foundation in North America and are on their way to fulfilling a European tour starting Sept. 17, 2015, in London, England. Crowdfunding Will Launch Europe Tour After receiving nearly 75 percent of their crowdfunding […]

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Bitcoin-based platform Bitnexo has joint-won the Latin American final of BBVA's Open Talent competition.

By David Lawder and Mai Nguyen

BURAS, La./Ho Chi Minh City (Reuters) - Savun Sim looked dejected as a large plastic vacuum hose sucked 2,600 pounds of wild Gulf of Mexico shrimp from his trawler's ice hold.

With dock prices at their lowest since 2009, pressured by a flood of cheap imports from shrimp farms across Asia, Sim said he would barely cover the cost of fuel for his two-day voyage at the far reaches of the Mississippi Delta.

The Cambodian immigrant got 75 cents a pound for his mid-size shrimp -- less than half of last year's price -- from the Ditcharo Seafood dock in Buras, Louisiana.

The woes of the Asian-American shrimping community here highlight a unique clash of interests with a part of the world their families largely left in the 1970s and 80s, now brought to a head by plunging prices and a looming Pacific trade deal.

Gulf shrimping is among a group of U.S. industries - including textiles, autos and sugar - that look vulnerable as President Barack Obama's signature 12-nation trade pact nears its final negotiating stages.

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) makes it harder to stem the flow of cheap imports raised on illegal antibiotics, the Gulf shrimpers fear that low prices will do what Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill could not: put them out of business and end a way of life.

"We can't make money," Sim told Reuters aboard the Miss Wannda, his weathered fiberglass "skimmer" vessel. "I'll probably lose the boat if it goes down more than this. Right now, we're working for the diesel only."

The TPP is a centerpiece of Obama's push to reassert U.S. economic power in Asia. It would include Vietnam and Malaysia, the fourth and eighth-largest exporters of shrimp to the United States last year -- and two countries frequently criticized for antibiotics use in aquaculture.

The sweet crustacean is America's favorite seafood, with 1.1 billion pounds consumed in 2013. But more than 90 percent of it is imported, mostly from farms in Southeast Asia, India, China and Ecuador.

At the moment, the world is awash in shrimp.

A wave of disease that decimated Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese shrimp ponds in 2013 and 2014 sent prices higher. But as these problems fade, Gulf shrimpers are feeling the brunt of full production, especially as India and Indonesia add capacity, putting pressure on Vietnamese farmers as well.

So far in 2015, U.S. shrimp imports are on pace to top their record in 2006 before global economic woes cut demand. (For graphic click here, http://reut.rs/1K2KPN4 )

FISHING HERITAGE

Starting from war refugees applying their coastal fishing skills, the Gulf's Southeast Asian community quickly grew. Ethnic Vietnamese and Cambodians now make up around 40 percent of the Gulf's shrimp fishermen.

New Orleans-based fisherman Thieu Tran, who left Vietnam 30 years ago, acknowledged that shrimp exports have helped his former homeland. He said the TPP will help it even more, but believes Washington should protect U.S. shrimpers.

"We're now worried that shrimp prices will put us out of business," Tran said through an interpreter.

The number of jobs in Louisiana's $1.9 billion seafood industry shrank to 33,391 in 2012 from 46,389 in 2003, according to National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration data, with more than 20 seafood processing operations closing.

With the TPP being negotiated in secret, suspicions abound that it can only mean more bad news for the Gulf.

Virtually the only duties on shrimp imports are those imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department to combat unfair subsidies or "dumping" at prices below production costs. And Commerce has just cut average duties on Vietnamese shrimp to 0.9 percent from 6.4 percent after recalculating cost data.

Many in the Gulf industry are pinning their hopes on U.S. ports turning away more shrimp tainted with illegal antibiotics. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently has the capacity to inspect only about one percent of U.S. seafood imports.

Echoing concerns raised by some anti-trade U.S. lawmakers, Louisiana Shrimp Association director Clint Guidry said he believes the TPP may make it harder to strengthen those inspections, because such actions could bring court challenges.

U.S. lawyers representing Vietnam's seafood exporters are preparing to challenge a separate U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection program for catfish once it is launched. They argue that the new rules could cripple imports of Vietnam's popular pangasius catfish.

"In my experience, if you're not at the negotiating table, you're usually what's for dinner," Guidry said.

But the U.S. trade agency insists that based on completed sections of the talks, the TPP will take steps to raise food safety standards for member countries, bringing them in line with science-based U.S. rules.

"TPP will not require lower food safety standards or any changes to existing U.S. laws or regulations," said Matthew McAlvanah, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative.

"It will also include tough new customs provisions and rules of origin to help us combat illegal transshipment, including of seafood, and identify food safety risks before they get to our shores," he said.

Gulf shrimping interests have complained that Chinese shrimp has been shipped through Malaysian exporters to skirt high anti-dumping duties on China.

ANTIBIOTIC ANXIETY

At the recent VietFish expo in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, shrimp exporters expressed similar angst about low market prices and the TPP's effect on their industry.

Top on their list of concerns is that the TPP will ultimately force shrimp farmers to give up their use of antibiotics, and that compliance with country-of-origin rules and environmental and labor standards will raise costs.

Several farmers, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the issue's sensitivity, said the use of antibiotics is still widespread in Vietnam despite government efforts to promote new farming techniques without the drugs.

But shrimp ponds remain susceptible to diseases that can wipe out entire farms overnight.

"These technical barriers are unreasonable," said Nguyen Van Kich, chairman of Cafatex Corp, a Vietnamese shrimp exporter. "Raising shrimps and fishes ... without medicine, they are unlikely to survive."

Tran Van Linh, chairman of Danang-based Thuan Phuoc Seafoods & Trading Corp, said he believes that under TPP, Vietnamese exporters could no longer buy shrimp from India to process and re-export. Vietnamese farmers would also have to develop more brood stock, now mostly imported, so that their shrimp is completely Vietnamese.

But Linh said this will hand an advantage to India, a non-TPP country with lower costs that in 2013 supplanted Thailand as the biggest shrimp exporter to the United States.

Faced with rock-bottom prices, U.S. shrimpers are trying to market wild Gulf shrimp as a premium product, with mixed results. Part of the problem is that the industry is set up to service large grocery chains and other institutional buyers that have grown accustomed to the regularity and uniformity of imported supplies, said Todd Rushing, co-founder of Shrimptrader.com, an online sales platform based in New Jersey.

"Southeast Asia will still find a way of getting cheap product into the United States," he added.

Rushing said he is getting more inquiries from shrimp boat owners to offer product on his website directly to retailers. Some are taking matters into their own hands.

George Barisich, who fishes out of Shell Beach, Louisiana, said he sold about 600 pounds of his largest shrimp, about 10 percent of a recent haul, directly to retail clients at $5 a pound. The dock was offering only $1.50.

Lance Authement, a fourth-generation shrimp processor in Dulac, Louisiana, has a simpler proposition.

"People are going to have to eat more shrimp or the government's going to have to control the amount of shrimp coming into the country," he said. "One of the two."

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Stuart Grudgings)

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By Bernie Woodall

DETROIT (Reuters) - Negotiators for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the United Auto Workers union continued bargaining Monday evening with hours to go before a 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) Tuesday deadline after which the U.S. union could call for a strike.

At issue are proposals to overhaul a two-tier pay system the UAW wants eliminated and to restructure company health plans to curb rising costs, people familiar with the process said.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) has at least three options if the contract expires without a settlement. It could call a company wide strike, or stage limited walkouts that could cripple the company's operations without forcing hefty payments to workers from union strike funds. The union could also opt to extend the current contract and allow more time for a settlement.

The terms of any Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) deal would be used to set the pattern for subsequent labor agreements at General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co , the UAW has said.

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of the Italian-American company, canceled a scheduled appearance at the Frankfurt auto show this week to try to seal a deal with the union and its president, Dennis Williams.

Labor expert Arthur Schwartz said on Monday that FCA must offer a raise to veteran first-tier workers who have not seen one in a decade to get workers to ratify any tentative deal the negotiators produce. First-tier workers make about $28 per hour while the second tier tops out at about $19.28 per hour.

Schwartz said FCA workers would not ratify a contract without a pay hike for more senior workers earning the top wage scale.

Marchionne has said he wants to eliminate the two-tier wage system, but he has suggested he wants to set base wages lower than the current top tier, and offer union workers more in the form of profit sharing or bonuses when the company's profits are high.

At FCA, about 45 percent of the company's UAW workers are recent hires earning lower-tier wages. That gives FCA's U.S. operations an $8 to $10 an hour labor cost advantage over Ford, where 28 percent of the UAW workers are in the lower-tier wage group, and GM, where 20 percent of workers are in the lower-wage tier.

Ford said Monday the UAW agreed to extend the current contract. A GM spokesman said talks continued with the UAW and had not yet called for an extension.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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