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ECB Selects 36 PSPs to Join Digital Euro Pilot (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) has selected 36 payment service providers (PSPs) from across the euro area to run a 12‑month digital euro pilot starting in the second half of 2027, using a beta version aligned with draft legislation but without legal‑tender status. The exercise, hosted at the ECB and 19 national central banks, will test front‑end functionality, operational processes, and user experience for person‑to‑person and person‑to‑business payments, both online and offline, including point‑of‑sale and e‑commerce use cases. Participating banks and non‑banks will act as distributors and acquirers for staff and selected merchants, effectively piloting the prospective intermediated distribution model. The move signals continued progress toward possible issuance while leaving fundamental policy decisions on legal tender status and full‑scale rollout explicitly unresolved. [ECB]

#Fintech #CBDC #Eurozone #ECB #DFC #Payments

·ecb.europa.eu·Jul 14, 2026

ECB Selects 36 PSPs to Join Digital Euro Pilot (ECB)

Stablecoins and the Future of the Dollar (Philadelphia Fed)

An article by the Philadelphia Fed's Joseph Abadi argues that reserve‑backed stablecoins, reinforced by the GENIUS Act, will entrench the dollar and position stablecoins primarily as regulated payment instruments rather than interest‑bearing stores of value. It traces the shift from early trading‑oriented and algorithmic designs, through the Terra collapse and the Silicon Valley Bank–linked run on USD Coin, to the current dominance of transparently backed, short‑term dollar‑asset portfolios that depend on public safety nets in stress. This matters because U.S. law now treats stablecoins as fully reserved “digital cash,” channels them into settlement and remittance use, and is intended to prevent disintermediation of bank deposits, even as yield‑like products via exchanges expose a regulatory gap. The unresolved issue is whether Congress closes this “yield loophole” and how cross‑border demand interacts with capital controls. [Philadelphia Fed]

#Stablecoins #Regulation #Fintech #DFC #CryptoAssets #UnitedStates

·philadelphiafed.org·Jul 13, 2026

Stablecoins and the Future of the Dollar (Philadelphia Fed)

Bolivian Government Considers including USDT as an Official Form of Payment (La Razon)

La Razon is reporting that Bolivia’s government is considering recognizing USDT as an additional settlement currency within the domestic payment system alongside the dollar and boliviano, following a 2024 Central Bank of Bolivia resolution that lifted a prior ban on crypto operations amid foreign‑exchange pressures. Authorities highlight that current usage of crypto-assets remains outside legal‑tender status and operates in a regulatory vacuum beyond the initial unblock, creating both market disruption and compliance gaps. The policy discussion is shaped by Bolivia’s placement on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list,” with explicit concern that any formal integration of USDT must address anti‑money‑laundering and counter‑terrorist‑financing (AML/CFT) vulnerabilities in crypto flows. The key unresolved issue is the design of a robust regulatory framework governing crypto‑asset use in payments. [La Razon]

#CryptoAssets #Bolivia #Stablecoins #PaymentSystems #Payments #DFC #USDT #Tether #Fintech

·larazon.bo·Jul 13, 2026

Bolivian Government Considers including USDT as an Official Form of Payment (La Razon)

U.S. Retail CBDC Ban Passed into Law (Congress.gov)

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a U.S. bipartisan housing law that incidentally statutorily prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) (or "any digital asset that is substantially similar to a retail CBDC directly or indirectly through a financial institution or other intermediary") until December 31, 2030, became law via constitutional default after President Trump neither signed nor vetoed the bill to protest Congressional inaction on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) that would require documented proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in U.S. federal elections. The CBDC prohibition is carefully worded to focus on retail CBDC ("widely available to the general public") and will not "prohibit any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private, and fully preserves the privacy protections of U.S. coins and physical currency". [Congress.gov]

#Fintech #CBDC #UnitedStates #DFC

·congress.gov·Jul 12, 2026

U.S. Retail CBDC Ban Passed into Law (Congress.gov)

Why the Digital Euro Will Fail? (LinkedIn)

Cédric Nicolas summarized a Cercle Européen de la Régulation Financière (CERF) article that argues that the retail digital euro is a late, mis‑specified response to Europe’s payment sovereignty concerns, likely to fail operationally and commercially. He notes that the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee has advanced legislation for a two‑mode (online/offline) central bank digital currency (CBDC) with a EUR 3,000 holding cap and mandatory “waterfall” transfers between central bank and commercial bank accounts. This architecture must operate across thousands of institutions and millions of merchants, all subject to a 24‑hour sweep of received digital euro balances, creating a highly complex, latency‑sensitive reconciliation engine. Nicolas contends that instant payment schemes like Wero and EuroPA already address domestic sovereignty, while account‑based design and rejection of blockchain prevent the digital euro from competing with global dollar stablecoins, suggesting a moratorium and a shift toward euro‑denominated stablecoins and deposit tokens instead. [LinkedIn]

#CBDC #Eurozone #ECB #Fintech #DFC #Stablecoins #CryptoAssets

·linkedin.com·Jul 12, 2026

Why the Digital Euro Will Fail? (LinkedIn)

SWIFT's Blockchain Ledger for Tokenized Deposits Ready for Use (SWIFT)

SWIFT announced that its new blockchain-based shared ledger for tokenized bank deposits is ready for initial live cross-border payment pilots, positioned as an extension of its existing messaging infrastructure rather than a new settlement asset. Seventeen banks across six continents will orchestrate 24/7 movements of bank-issued tokenized deposits on their own ledgers, with final settlement still occurring through current systems, aiming to improve intraday and overnight liquidity efficiency and customer payment availability without altering underlying compliance, credit, and control frameworks. Key unresolved issues include how far this model can scale beyond deposits to broader regulated digital assets and whether interoperability across competing tokenized networks will remain under SWIFT-led governance. [SWIFT]

#Blockchain #Fintech #SWIFT #DepositTokens #DFC

·swift.com·Jul 10, 2026

SWIFT's Blockchain Ledger for Tokenized Deposits Ready for Use (SWIFT)

Zelle Head to India and Unveils ZelleUSD Stablecoin (EWS)

[On June 11, 2026] Early Warning Services (EWS), the network operator of Zelle, unveiled ZelleUSD (ZLUSD), its proprietary U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin. ZLUSD will support future international payment capabilities, giving U.S. consumers more opportunities to send money to family and friends around the world. EWS is owned by Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. EWS runs Zelle, a U.S.-based service that enables individuals to near instantly transfer money from their bank account to another registered user's bank account using a mobile device or the website of a participating banking institution. Coincidentally, EWS announced that India will be the first country where U.S. consumers can use Zelle to send money to family and friends overseas. Further details on ZLUSD will be announced in the coming months. [EWS]

#CryptoAssets #Fintech #Payments #Stablecoins #Zelle #FastPayments #India #DFC

·web.archive.org·Jul 10, 2026

Zelle Head to India and Unveils ZelleUSD Stablecoin (EWS)

Will Canada Become Cashless? (Engert)

A paper by Engert, Shcherbakov, Stenzel and Huynh argues that, despite declining point‑of‑sale cash use, Canada is unlikely to become cashless in the foreseeable future, based on a structural equilibrium model of consumer–merchant payment choice calibrated to three waves of Bank of Canada survey data from 2013/14, 2017/18, and 2023/23. The model estimates how large an increase in the relative usage cost of cash would be required to drive cash use to insignificance, finding that this required shock is consistently large over time. This matters because cash demand (and the cash‑to‑GDP ratio) remains robust even as contactless cards and pandemic‑related shifts have reduced cash’s transaction share, implying persistent roles for cash in hoarding and for less affluent and older users. A key unresolved issue is whether future changes to banking infrastructure or card economics materially raise cash usage costs enough to alter this equilibrium. [Engert]

#Cash #Canada #DFC #Fintech

·web.archive.org·Jul 9, 2026

Will Canada Become Cashless? (Engert)

The Shift in China's CBDC (Digital Yuan) Policy and Key Implications (JRI)

Japan Research Institute (JRI) published a paper that analyzes China’s decision in late 2025 to shift the digital yuan (e‑CNY) from a non‑interest‑bearing central bank digital currency (CBDC) to an interest‑bearing commercial bank liability integrated into reserve requirements and deposit insurance (i.e., functionally a tokenized deposit). It argues this redesign aims to align bank balance‑sheet incentives, move usage toward corporate and cross‑border payments, and better plug into the mBridge cross‑border infrastructure as part of a strategy to deepen renminbi‑denominated settlement outside the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system. Unresolved issues include whether this deposit‑based model can achieve scale amid entrenched super‑app payments, opaque mBridge usage, and continued constraints on non‑official digital currencies in China. [JRI]

#CBDC #China #DepositTokens #wCBDC #DFC

·web.archive.org·Jul 7, 2026

The Shift in China's CBDC (Digital Yuan) Policy and Key Implications (JRI)

Engaging with Privacy Stablecoins: A Framework for Scalable and KYC/AML-Compliant Adoption (BoI)

The Bank of Italy (BoI) Financial Intelligence Unit published a paper that examines the potential of privacy-preserving stablecoins ("privacy stablecoins") as retail payment instruments. It argues that stablecoins currently operating on public Layer-1 blockchains face structural limitations in terms of scalability, regulatory compliance, and privacy protection. Privacy-enhancing Layer-2 architectures may help overcome these constraints by combining greater operational efficiency with mechanisms that reconcile user confidentiality and regulatory oversight. The paper proposes a framework that relies on rollup‑based Layer‑2 designs with validity‑proof systems, data‑availability guarantees, and rule‑based selective disclosure to reconcile privacy with auditable reserves and enforceable financial integrity. [BoI]

#CryptoAssets #Fintech #AMLCFT #DFC #Privacy #Stablecoins

·web.archive.org·Jul 6, 2026

Engaging with Privacy Stablecoins: A Framework for Scalable and KYC/AML-Compliant Adoption (BoI)

ECB Publishes New Version of Digital Euro Scheme Rulebook (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) published version 0.91 of the digital euro scheme rulebook. Its purpose is to provide a single set of measures, rules, and standards for the provision of digital euro payment services, and ensure a standardized digital euro payment experience across all Member States, irrespective of the country or the payment service providers (PSPs) used. It leverages, to the extent possible, on existing industry standards and procedures to improve interoperability and promote harmonization within the European payments infrastructure. [ECB] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/timeline/profuse/shared/pdf/ecb.derdgpr260706_RDG_Progress_Report_July_2026.en.pdf

#CBDC #ECB #DFC #Eurozone

·web.archive.org·Jul 6, 2026

ECB Publishes New Version of Digital Euro Scheme Rulebook (ECB)

Bank of Russia Announces Banks' Readiness for Digital Ruble Widespread Use (Tass)

Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina reported that banks and major retailers are technically ready to support broad use of the digital ruble central bank digital currency (CBDC). Preparatory work has focused on integrating systemically important banks and large merchants into the acceptance infrastructure and on developing functionality such as smart contracts and the option to host digital ruble wallets on commercial bank balance sheets rather than solely on the central bank balance sheet. Major banks will be required to allow their clients to transact with digital rubles starting on September 1, 2026. [Tass] https://tass.ru/ekonomika/27878967

#CBDC #Russia #rCBDC #Fintech #DFC

·tass.ru·Jul 4, 2026

Bank of Russia Announces Banks' Readiness for Digital Ruble Widespread Use (Tass)

A Unified Ledger in Practice: Lessons from Project Hangang (BoK)

Bank of Korea (BoK) Governor Hyun Song Shin presented a paper outlining the experiences and implications of "Project Hangang" at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal. The paper argues that Hangang shows a unified ledger can implement tokenized reserves and deposits at scale while preserving a two‑tier monetary system and singleness of money, but only via specific architectural choices and unresolved institutional reforms. The project runs a permissioned digital currency system with wholesale central bank money natively issued on-ledger, burn‑and‑issue interbank transfers, and a strict separation of fungible currency tokens from a programmable voucher layer. Phase I demonstrated live retail and programmable public‑voucher use cases for around 80,000 users, but with crude, offline reconciliation to BOK‑Wire+ and pre‑funded liquidity. Phase II scales to ongoing operation and fiscal disbursements, while future work centers on tokenized government bonds, 24/7 intraday liquidity and cross‑border linkage via Project Agorá, contingent on clarifying the legal status of wholesale claims and the integrated liquidity framework. [ECB]

#DFC #Fintech #UnifiedLedger #Korea

·ecb.europa.eu·Jul 2, 2026

A Unified Ledger in Practice: Lessons from Project Hangang (BoK)

Project Agila: Results, Technical Findings and Policy Implications (BSP)

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) published a paper that concludes a wholesale central bank digital currency (WCBDC) on Hyperledger Fabric is technically feasible for 24/7 interbank settlement and could serve as a conditional back-up to PhilPaSS Plus, subject to major design, risk, and legal work. The two-phase Project Agila sandbox showed Oracle’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform can support full WCBDC lifecycle operations, programmable payments and high volumes, but with clear constraints around transaction finality, access controls, cybersecurity, and scalability at larger loads. The report frames WCBDC as reserves-on-ledger and potential high-quality liquid asset, analyzes implications under the National Payment Systems Act and BSP Charter, and identifies systemically important payment system treatment, access, holding limits, and charter changes as key policy questions. It recommends focusing next on tokenized securities settlement and institutional cross-border use cases while hardening governance, IT risk, and integration with existing financial market infrastructures (FMIs). [BSP]

#Philippines #Fintech #PaymentSystems #DFC #CBDC #wCBDC

·bsp.gov.ph·Jul 1, 2026

Project Agila: Results, Technical Findings and Policy Implications (BSP)

Stablecoins and Anonymous Money (BIS)

Gita Gopinath argues that global stablecoin usage is structurally evolving toward maximum pseudonymity, in tension with decades of policy that pushed traditional money toward transparency. Empirically, most United States dollar‑pegged stablecoins (Tether and USD Coin) are held in self‑custody wallets and increasingly transferred wallet‑to‑wallet, with regulated exchanges and issuers involved in a shrinking share of flows, even on the most identifiable chains. This pattern undermines tax collection, financial‑crime controls, capital controls, and sanctions that depend on residence and identity information, while exploiting lighter compliance burdens relative to banks. Existing United States and European frameworks focus on issuers and centralized exchanges, leaving self‑custody and offshore activity largely outside ex ante monitoring, raising unresolved questions on how far regulation should extend into wallet‑level and cross‑border infrastructure. [BIS]

#Fintech #DFC #Stablecoins #Anonymity #Privacy #FinancialIntegrity

·bis.org·Jul 1, 2026

Stablecoins and Anonymous Money (BIS)

U.K. BoE and FCA Approach to Joint Regulation of Systemic Stablecoin Issuers (BoE)

The Bank of England (BoE) published a paper that outlines how it and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will jointly regulate “systemic” stablecoin issuers within the new U.K. stablecoin regime created by recent legislative changes. The paper allocates supervisory remits across the two authorities and the Payment Systems Regulator, explains how issuers move from solo Financial Conduct Authority oversight to joint regulation once HM Treasury recognizes them as systemic, and details transitional tools such as staged onboarding and the BoE’s power of direction. It hard‑codes a more prudentially oriented regime for systemic issuers (backing assets in central bank deposits and short‑term gilts, capital and reserve requirements, issuance guardrails) while leaving conduct, disclosure, and competition issues primarily with the Financial Conduct Authority. Unresolved points include final calibration of failure arrangements, guardrail withdrawal, and rule disapplication mechanics. [BoE]

#CryptoAssets #Stablecoins #UnitedKingdom #Regulation #Fintech #DFC

·bankofengland.co.uk·Jun 30, 2026

U.K. BoE and FCA Approach to Joint Regulation of Systemic Stablecoin Issuers (BoE)

Germany: Cash Dominates the Payment Landscape (CashEssentials)

CashEssentials published an article that argues Germany’s payment landscape remains cash‑centric even as digital usage overtakes cash in transaction counts, based on the Bundesbank’s 2025 payment behavior study. The study reports that digital means of payment account for 55% of recorded purchases, but cash is still the single most used instrument with 45% of payments, ahead of debit cards and mobile payments. Measured by value, debit cards lead with 28% of turnover, while cash and credit transfers each hold 23%, indicating differentiated roles by ticket size and use case. The article emphasizes inclusion and resilience; cash usage is higher among older, lower‑income, and less digitally literate groups, and respondents strongly support retaining cash and developing European digital alternatives such as Wero and a digital euro. [Cash Essesntials]

#Cash #Germany #Payments #Fintech #DFC #CBDC

·cashessentials.org·Jun 26, 2026

Germany: Cash Dominates the Payment Landscape (CashEssentials)

Digital Pound Lab: Phase 2 Update (BoE)

The Bank of England (BoE) published a Phase 2 interim update for its Digital Pound Lab, developed with Accenture, ahead of the phase's July 2026 conclusion. BoE-developed use cases demonstrated include one-time aliases for privacy-preserving payments, confirmation of payee, group "kitty" payments using conditional locks, external service interface provider connections enabling third-party app integration, allowances extended to e-commerce, and usage-based streaming micropayments. Twelve private sector participants are testing additional use cases; two featured to date are Crunchfish, demonstrating deferred offline payments with a reserve-pay-settle lifecycle and double-spend controls, and TECHT Labs, demonstrating conditional business-to-business payments via smart contracts. The BoE explicitly disclaimed policy endorsement of any participant designs. A full Phase 2 report and webinar are expected in July 2026. [BoE]

#CBDC #UnitedKingdom #Fintech #DFC #Offline #Crunchfish

·bankofengland.co.uk·Jun 24, 2026

Digital Pound Lab: Phase 2 Update (BoE)

Digital Euro: MEPs Want to Ensure Sovereignty, Privacy and Financial Stability (European Parliament)

The European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee adopted its negotiating position on the digital euro by 43 votes to 14, part of a three-file single currency package. The digital euro would be account-based online and local-storage offline, with privacy-by-design using zero-knowledge proofs and no European Central Bank (ECB) access to personal identification data; basic services and offline payments would be fee-free; most merchants required to accept it. European Commission-set individual holding limits, calibrated on ECB recommendations and reviewed biennially, protect financial stability; businesses may accumulate incoming digital euro payments for up to 24 hours only; no interest accrues. The ECB must complete a rulebook, infrastructure, and pilots before a minimum 24-month rollout. A companion file allows non-euro EU member state payment service providers to distribute the digital euro under the same rules; a third file reinforces cash as legal tender and prohibits merchants from refusing it. Council negotiations on all three files are the next legislative step. [European Parliament]

#CBDC #ECB #Eurozone #Fintech #FinancialStability #DFC

·europarl.europa.eu·Jun 24, 2026

Digital Euro: MEPs Want to Ensure Sovereignty, Privacy and Financial Stability (European Parliament)

US Senate Passes Housing Bill With Four-Year Fed CBDC Ban (Decrypt)

The U.S. Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in an 85-5 vote, a bipartisan package meant to boost housing supply and stop large investors from snapping up single-family homes. The bill would also bar the Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC), or any substantially similar distributed ledger technology (DLT) based digital asset, until the end of 2030, including via intermediaries. The text includes a carve‑out for private “dollar‑denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private, and fully preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency”. The bill now goes back to the House of Representatives, where quick approval is expected. [Decrypt]

#CBDC #UnitedStates #DFC #Fintech

·decrypt.co·Jun 23, 2026

US Senate Passes Housing Bill With Four-Year Fed CBDC Ban (Decrypt)

Bank of Korea Digital Currency to Connect with Bank Account Networks (Electronic Times)

Korea's Electronic Times reports that, as part of Project Han River Phase 2, participating banks are integrating deposit-token infrastructure with their core banking ledgers inside the Bank of Korea (BOK) Naver Cloud test environment. Under the architecture, the BOK issues wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) to banks as the interbank settlement asset, while banks issue deposit tokens that users spend via bank-app wallets. The new work links deposit tokens to core deposit, transfer, and accounting systems, including interest accrual and payment, and builds treasury-voucher systems for programmable government subsidy disbursement. Sources frame this as a pre-institutionalization step, moving from "can it settle payments" to "can it run inside production banking systems." [Electronic Times]

#CBDC #wCBDC #DepositTokens #Fintech #Korea #DFC

·web.archive.org·Jun 22, 2026

Bank of Korea Digital Currency to Connect with Bank Account Networks (Electronic Times)

Bank of England Policy Statement and Draft Rules on Regulating Systemic Stablecoins (BoE)

The Bank of England (BoE) published a policy statement and draft code of practice for systemic stablecoin issuers, reflecting extensive engagement with industry and stakeholders that resulted in targeted revisions to the proposals consulted on in 2025. The maximum share held in short-term U.K. government debt has been increased from 60% to 70%, with the remainder in central bank deposits. Also, a temporary issuance guardrail will apply to each systemic stablecoin, initially set at £40 billion, dropping the holding limits (£20,000 on individuals and £10 million on corporations) proposed in the 2025 draft. However, the BoE will ban issuers (directly or indirectly) from paying interest or dividends directly to users for simply holding stablecoins, but will permit activity-based rewards, similarly to the U.S. CLARITY Act currently winding its way through Congress. The BoE is also considering offering a backstop lending facility for eligible, solvent, and viable systemic stablecoin issuers, which would allow them to borrow against short-term sterling-denominated UK government debt securities in a limited set of circumstances. [BoE]

#Regulation #Stablecoins #UnitedKingdom #CryptoAssets #DFC #Fintech

·web.archive.org·Jun 22, 2026

Bank of England Policy Statement and Draft Rules on Regulating Systemic Stablecoins (BoE)

Stablecoin Remuneration on Centralized Crypto-Asset Exchanges (BIS)

The BIS published a paper by Huang, Tarashev and Wang that argues that the way that crypto exchanges remunerate customer stablecoin holdings drives very different macrofinancial effects. Exchanges either pass through income from low‑risk reserve assets ("reserve-based" remuneration) or use revenues from lending, margin finance and trading ("activity-based"). In the reserve‑based case (e.g., Coinbase), stablecoin remuneration closely tracks policy rates, while in the activity‑based case (e.g., Binance) yields are highly volatile and tied to crypto market conditions and funding demand. Econometric decompositions show crypto‑activity shocks dominate benchmark‑rate shocks in explaining activity‑based yields, especially during 2024 rallies. If stablecoins scale, either of these remuneration models could alter bank and money‑market funding, introduce boom‑bust dynamics and run risks, and reshape monetary policy transmission, with regulatory capital and liquidity requirements a key open mitigant. [BIS]

#Stablecoins #CryptoAssets #DFC #Fintech #BIS #FinancialStability #MonetaryPolicy #Macrofinancial

·bis.org·Jun 19, 2026

Stablecoin Remuneration on Centralized Crypto-Asset Exchanges (BIS)

Data Externalities, Market Power, and the Optimal CBDC Design (BoC)

The Bank of Canada (BoC) published a paper by Cheng, Davoodalhosseini, Chiu, and Jiang that shows that central bank digital currency (CBDC) economics is complicated by private payment service provider (PSP) transaction data harvesting and sale. A well-designed CBDC should collect some transaction data itself — for fraud detection and financial crime monitoring — but not sell it. Counterintuitively, a U.S.-calibrated model finds that introducing a CBDC would increase rather than reduce PSP data collection, because PSP market power currently dominates - i.e., public competition pushes PSPs to expand their customer base, raising aggregate data output. The reverse holds if PSP competition intensifies, in which case a CBDC designed to curb data monetization would shrink PSPs' market share and reduce aggregate data production. [BoC]

#CBDC #Privacy #Canada #Data #Fintech #DFC

·bankofcanada.ca·Jun 19, 2026

Data Externalities, Market Power, and the Optimal CBDC Design (BoC)

HKEX and HKMA Launch WCBDC Pilot Project to Facilitate After-Hours Derivatives Trading (HKMA)

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) will run a joint pilot using e‑HKD wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) operating on a 24/7 basis to fund advance margin for derivatives after‑hours trading while keeping existing operational workflows unchanged. The aim is to improve flexibility and efficiency versus the current cut‑off, under which clearing participants must submit advance margin deposit requests to Hong Kong Futures Exchange Clearing Corporation (HKCC) by 15:00 for them to count toward the after‑hours session. Participants in HKCC can optionally conduct real‑value trial transactions, with broader adoption contingent on regulatory approval and market readiness. [HKMA]

#Fintech #HongKong #CBDC #wCBDC #DFC #Derivatives #Margin

·hkma.gov.hk·Jun 19, 2026

HKEX and HKMA Launch WCBDC Pilot Project to Facilitate After-Hours Derivatives Trading (HKMA)

Bipartisan US Housing Bill Bans Retail CBDC until 2030 (Senate Banking Committee)

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee released the latest text of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, with backing from the leading Republicans and Democrats on both committees, which includes a ban on central bank digital currency (CBDC) until 31 December 2030. The Act defines a CBDC as a U.S. dollar‑denominated direct Federal Reserve liability widely available to the general public. The text explicitly carves out wholesale CBDC and tokenized reserves ("any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private, and fully preserves the privacy protections of U.S. coins and physical currency). The Senate and the House are expected to formally pass the bill within weeks, and the President is expected to sign the bill once passed. [Senate Banking Committee] See also: https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/bill_text_of_the_21st_century_road_to_housing_act.pdf

#Fintech #CBDC #wCBDC #UnitedStates #DFC

·banking.senate.gov·Jun 19, 2026

Bipartisan US Housing Bill Bans Retail CBDC until 2030 (Senate Banking Committee)

Programmable Purpose-Bound Digital Tenge for Public Spending (LinkedIn)

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance now requires government expenditures above 100 million tenge to be executed in programmable Digital Tenge central bank digital currency (CBDC) with end‑to‑end identifiers and event‑triggered settlement. Initial use cases include construction, health, fuel, transport, special funds, certain budget loans, and research grants, with future extensions to utilities, energy, border infrastructure, subsidized lending, and quasi‑public entities. The funds are "colored" to their purpose. For example, tenge allocated for a road cannot be redirected to anything else. And payment is released only after a confirming event, whether an act of completed work, an electronic invoice, or a registry record. [LinkedIn]

#CBDC #Fintech #Kazakhstan #Programmability #Payments #DFC #PurposeBound

·linkedin.com·Jun 17, 2026

Programmable Purpose-Bound Digital Tenge for Public Spending (LinkedIn)

The Impact of Potential Retail CBDC on the Canadian Financial System During a Severe Recession (BoC)

The Bank of Canada (BoC) published a staff analytical paper by Sofia Priazhkina that examines how a non-interest-bearing retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) could affect the financial stability of Canada’s systemically important banks during a severe recession. Stress test results show that the banks remain resilient, maintaining key regulatory ratios even under high CBDC demand. To manage funding outflows, banks scale back balance sheet growth and replace some lost deposits with alternative funding. Profitability stays strong overall, though short-term volatility may occur. To reduce potential risks, the paper recommends a gradual CBDC rollout with holding limits, well-timed capital buffer adjustments, liquidity regulation updates, early communication of regulatory changes, and coordination with central bank balance sheet policies. [BoC]

#CBDC #Canada #FinancialStability #Fintech #DFC

·bankofcanada.ca·Jun 16, 2026

The Impact of Potential Retail CBDC on the Canadian Financial System During a Severe Recession (BoC)

Report on the National Payment System in Peru (BCRP)

[March 2026] The Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (BCRP) published its March 2026 national payments report, detailing progress on its "Dinero Digital" retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot launched in October 2024 with telecom partner Bitel (via the BiPay wallet). Designed to test digital payments in unbanked rural sectors, the pilot reached 67,000 active users, an average of 91,000 daily transactions, and S/ 4.2 million in circulation by late February 2025. By December 2025, active users expanded to 172,000, averaging 47,600 daily transactions, with S/ 10.0 million circulating directly among end users. The notable drop in transaction velocity likely stems from the cooling of early adoption biases and introductory marketing incentives as the pilot transitioned from tech-centric early adopters into deeper, lower-velocity rural segments. [BCRP]

#Fintech #Peru #CBDC #DFC

·bcrp.gob.pe·Jun 13, 2026

Report on the National Payment System in Peru (BCRP)

Barriers to a European Banking Union (IMF)

The IMF published a paper by Capelle, Fernandes, Kruger, and McAdam that uses credit registry microdata (AnaCredit, RIAD) to estimate barriers to cross-border bank-firm relationship formation, loan pricing, and bank entry across the euro area, finding cross-border relationships 95% less likely than domestic ones and entry barriers equivalent to a 99-percentage-point implicit tax, while interest rate and loan-quantity wedges remain small. These extensive-margin frictions correlate strongly with a novel bilateral regulatory-distance index spanning prudential, resolution, deposit insurance, and bankruptcy regimes. A calibrated spatial general equilibrium model finds a 10% reduction in relationship wedges yields a 1.6% euro-area GDP gain, driven overwhelmingly (96%) by capital and labor accumulation rather than allocative efficiency, with smaller economies and financial centers (Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands) gaining disproportionately. Whether reallocation gains remain modest even as integration deepens is unresolved. [IMF]

#ECB #Eurozone #Regulation #Fintech #Banks #CBDC #DFC

·imf.org·Jun 13, 2026

Barriers to a European Banking Union (IMF)