The OECD published a paper that presents the impact of digitalization on access to cash and summarizes policies and measures enacted to ensure access to and acceptance of cash. Governments around the world are reacting to this decline by putting in place laws and regulations to protect access to cash for citizens. A few countries , such as New Zealand, have gone further to trial new mechanisms for operating in a 'less cash' environment, such as using multi-bank ATMs; reducing distances to shared ATMs ('smart placement');local cash recycling capabilities. Australia and UK are integrating Post Offices into their cash networks. But as cash is likely to be round for several decades, new approaches will be needed, such as rationalization of denominations and ATMs that recycle cash (which already exist but are not widely used), more use of stored value cards (SVCs), to provide 'change'.

The New York Fed published research that provides empirical evidence of limited interoperability in crypto-asset markets. It examined the price relation between native and bridged USDC and USDT stablecoins on multiple blockchains and bridges. Stablecoins are good candidates for studying interoperability because they are nonspeculative by design (each is intended to represent $1), and in principle, a bridged representation of an asset represents value that is identical to the original asset. A higher degree of interoperability in blockchain systems would allow traders to compress any divergence in prices between stablecoins and their bridged representations and push the correlation between the prices of two stablecoins closer to one. However, it found surprisingly high price variation across all of them, suggesting limited interoperability.

Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) published a report on the main developments in the first phase of its Drex wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof-of-concept (POC) work, which took place between July 2023 and October 2024. (None of the Drex tests involved real clients or assets, but rather fictitious ones.) The report highlighted the trilemma of finding a solution that balances decentralization, programmability, and privacy issues at the same time, while being compliant to the Brazilian legal framework. I'm still digesting a Google Translate version (it's only available in Portuguese) of the 73-page report, and may come back with more detail later.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Committee on Payment and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) published a brief that highlights key retail payment trends based on 2023 data collected from member jurisdictions. It demonstrates that the use, or volume, of cashless payment methods continued to grow in 2023 and that consumers increasingly choose to pay digitally for small value transactions. Although broad based, the growth in cashless payments was especially strong in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), driven by a sharp increase in the use of credit transfers (mostly fast payments) and e-money. It also finds that the uptake of fast payments is generally higher in jurisdictions with lower levels of cash in circulation and wider use of payment cards, especially for small payments. However, the demand for cash withdrawals generally remained stable compared with previous years.

The costs of payment methods for consumers are difficult to determine, not recorded in a harmonised manner on an international level and consequently vary significantly from country to country. For this reason, a separate study is necessary for Germany. As part of a representative survey conducted in 2023, households were asked about the costs they incurred when using various means of payment. Financial costs were recorded, including fees for account management, ATM cash withdrawals or for payment cards, as well as the financial impact in the case of loss or fraud. Non-monetary costs in the form of the time required and the costs of data disclosure were also included.

Digital fiat currency (DFC) is a tokenized, digital representation of a sovereign currency issued by an authorized public or private entity. When issued and distributed by a central bank or other monetary authority, it is a central bank digital currency (CBDC). If it is issued by a private entity, it may be e-money or another form of digital commercial bank money/private digital tokens/stablecoins, even if backed by central bank money.

The IMF published the results of a study that employs a two-sided market model to examine how payment systems might respond to new currencies. Numerical simulations indicate that the success of a new currency hinges on a large-scale launch. However, even unsuccessful attempts could disrupt existing systems, potentially resulting in the elimination of cash. If cash plays a critical role as a safeguard, regulatory and monetary authorities should give due consideration to ensure its continued availability when payment innovations are introduced.

The Bank of Canada published the results of a study that evaluated Canadians' access to cash in 2023, updating previous metrics on travel distances to automated banking machines (ABMs) and financial institution (FI) branches with improved quality checks on ABM locations. Despite a small decrease in the number of ABMs and branches since 2019, overall access to cash has remained unchanged, with Canadians needing to travel an average distance of 2.0 kilometers from their home locations to reach the nearest ABM and 4.6 kilometers to reach the nearest FI branch. Rural Canadians continue to travel farther to access to cash, with an average travel distance of 3.9 km to the nearest ABM and 9.7 km to the nearest branch, highlighting the need for continued monitoring in rural areas.

Most closed loop systems can offer fast and seamless transactions. The real challenge in payments arises in open loops. They require clearing arrangements by which financial institutions accept monies from other institutions. To allow stablecoins to be used to conduct payments more generally, there needs to be clearing arrangements between stablecoins and banks. The viability of stablecoins will depend on its efficient operation in open loop applications. Whether they become a core payment instrument or remain niche will be an outcome in large part of their ability to bridge the gap between crypto ecosystems and the banking system. (Ousmène Jacques Mandeng)

The IMF published a paper that presents a practical legal-analytical framework to assess how private law rules can be designed to support the wide circulation and safe holding of token-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) primarily intended for retail use. It follows a previous IMF working paper that examined the legal foundations of CBDC under central bank law and its treatment under monetary law—the main public law aspects of CBDC. A private law framework is also needed, because unlike account-based CBDC, token-based CBDC constitutes from the legal perspective a new form of money and hence raises a lot of challenges under private law. This legal nature will shape how token-based CBDC can be transferred, held in custody, “deposited” with commercial banks, and pledged. It is also be crucial that private law rules establish with certainty how ownership and other rights in token-based CBDC can be transferred between economic agents. In most jurisdictions, the private law regime for token-based CBDC will likely need to be augmented by a comprehensive legislative intervention to provide a sufficiently robust and predictable legal foundation for this new digital currency. In designing such a legislative framework, countries will need to consider carefully whether to anchor it in a broader framework for digital money or assets.

The Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported that Muzhir Mohammad Saleh, the financial advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that the Central Bank of Iraq is planning to issue a digital currency (CBDC) as a "gradual alternative" to bank notes. He added that "digital cash will maintain its traditional functions as a unit of account, payments and savings, with the possibility of using it online and smart phones, which will contribute to developing a more stable and efficient financial environment."

The European Central Bank (ECB) published a paper that reported the results of a series of experiments in a population-representative survey of European consumers to examine their attitudes towards the possible introduction of a digital euro. The study found that test subjects who were shown a short video explaining the key features of the digital euro increases the likelihood of adoption by 12 percentage points relative to a control group that is not shown the video. Second, it found that test subjects would allocate a relatively small fraction from a positive wealth shock to digital euros and their allocation to other liquid assets would be little affected. Third, it found that holding limits in the range of €1,000 to €10,000 would have insignificant differential effects on the composition of liquid asset holdings. Lastly, 55% of test subjects said that they will not adopt the digital euro due to strong preferences for existing forms of payment.

The Bank of Korea will reportedly launch a three-month central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot involving 100,000 consumers, as early as this month (March 2025). It will involve seven major commercial banks that will issue deposit tokens backed by CBDC, which consumers can use to make purchases at various participating merchants. The tokens, valued up to 1 million won per person, will be distributed through electronic wallets, allowing users to make payments by displaying QR codes.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine LaGarde signaled an acceleration of the pace of its digital euro project. She also gave an October 2025 deadline to "put to reality this digital euro" after "campaigning enough with all the stakeholders – meaning the European Parliament, European Council, European Commission [to] complete the legislative process, without which we will not be able to move. The crypto press has taken October 2025 to be a prospective digital euro launch date, but that seems very unlikely to me. Surely "put to reality" means something more like preparing to pilot the new central bank digital currency (CBDC)?

Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) published a white paper on its Student Safe central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project, which was launched in May 2023 and phased out in February 2025. The aim was to create a CBDC environment that is not only secure and regulated, but also flexible and user-friendly. The Student Safe offered free of charge and secure digital payment solutions to support the financial inclusion of 8-14 year olds. It provided users with the opportunity to learn the theory and practice of digital finance basics through a combination of quizzes and mobile banking functions. Going forward, the MNB will examine possible motivations and emerging use cases that could be relevant to the Student Safe user base or to another group of consumers.

The Bank of Israel (BOI) published a paper on its preliminary digital shekel (DS) ecosystem design thinking for public and professional community feedback. It covers the basic and advanced user journey, architecture and technical issues, and various aspects of policy, rules, and regulation. A prospective DS will be a universal means of payment that would be free for private users (for businesses, the costs of using it are expected to be significantly lower than existing digital payments). The DS will support offline payments, allowing payments even in situations without network connectivity. Anonymous payments would be possible but in limited amounts. Access to personal identifiable information about user DS balances and activities will not be available to the BOI, but they will be to payment service providers, like with existing digital payment methods.

The GENIUS Act tries to mitigate credit risk on stablecoins by declaring their property of the investor vis-a-vis custodians, and prioritizing the investors' claims vis-a-vis creditors of the issuer. But neither is really a fix, and the truth is that absent a government guaranty, there's no way around this problem. No matter how much stablecoins are prioritized in bankruptcy, bankruptcy is a slow process, and time is money. And there are limits to how far stablecoins can be prioritized in bankruptcy without rendering the bankruptcy system unworkable. (Making stablecoins the property of the investors is no help in an issuer bankruptcy because all the investor gets is a digital token that is worthless without the redemption right, and that's just a bankruptcy claim; this is different than in the custodian bankruptcy scenario.) The only real way to ensure 100% timely repayment is a government backstop, but that's not something the industry wants (because it goes with regulation). (Adam Levitin)

The Bank of the Russia has postponed the launch of the digital ruble from July 2025 to a later date to be determined. According to Governor Elvira Nabiullina the central bank needs more time to work out all the details in the pilot and hold all consultations with banks on the economic model that is most attractive to customers. 15 banks, 1,700 citizens and about 30 companies have taken part in the pilot that started in August 2023.

The evolution of cash should provide each User with the ability to instantly authenticate a banknote at any time. To do this, it is necessary not only to develop the ability to conveniently, quickly and practically unnoticeably check banknotes for the User, but also to interest the entir e population of the country in regularly conducting such checks. Modernization of central bank cash with Blockchain technology is the optimal solution to this problem, which will allow the population of the country not only to check the legitimacy of each banknote, but also to carry out digital transactions using hybrid banknotes, during which the legitimacy of cash will always be checked in the background.