Central Bank of Eswatini partners with Giesecke+Devrient to further explore CBDC issuance
The Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) has partnered with Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) to research and explore the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). G+D's appointment stems from the completion of the 1st phase of the CBDC Diagnostic Study conducted in 2020 which found that a retail CBDC presented the strongest and direct opportunity for the adoption of a digital currency in Eswatini.
Central Bank Digital Currency: Towards A Composable Standards-Based Implementation
This paper by Vipin Bharathan and Mani Pillai proposes a CBDC implementation approach based on two reference standards; the Token Taxonomy Framework (TTF) for tokens and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) Common Domain Model (CDM) for contracts. The proposal’s basic pattern is a contract network linked to a token network, bridging the gap between business contracts and the corresponding exchange of value.
The competing priorities facing U.S. crypto regulations
The rise of cryptocurrencies has demonstrated just how difficult it is both to enforce existing financial regulations in the context of new currencies and to predict how those new currencies will be used, and by whom. That’s not a reason to forswear all new forms of currency but it is a reason to approach them cautiously and with an eye to the opportunities for abuse and illicit activity. It’s also a reason to be less confident about what types of benefits a CBDC will realistically be able to offer, especially since many of those could potentially be addressed through other, less radical changes to existing financial institutions and instruments.
BoE looking for help with its offline CBDC research and PoC work
The Bank of England is looking for a specialist supplier to help them with their offline central bank digital currency (CBDC) research and proof of concept (PoC) work. The process of applying is a bit wonky because thy've delegated it to the UK government's digital supplier procurement system, and if you or your firm are not already on their supplier list, tough luck. And tough luck for the Bank too, because the "supply" of offline digital currency experts is rather thin, and most probably aren't already be on the list.
Establishing a US CBDC: The right time or too risky?
"Waller took a more cautious view. “It is critical that we keep both the benefits and risks of digital assets in the policy conversation,” he said. Waller noted that, in January 2022, the Federal Reserve Board published a discussion paper on the topic and has not yet resolved to move forward. Personally, he said, “I am highly skeptical of whether there is compelling need for the Fed to create a digital currency.” In particular, he took issue with Singh’s view that the lack of a CBDC would threaten the dollar. “The underlying reasons for why the dollar is the dominant currency have little to do with technology, and the introduction of a CBDC would not affect those underlying reasons.”"
This week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) commemorated the first anniversary of the launch of its eNaira retail CBDC, which was formally launched on October 25, 2021. The press release is notable, because until now, according to that official announcement in 2021, it was a pilot launch, so sometime in the last year it morphed into a full launch, which many of us (me included) suspected it was from the start, despite the use of the word "pilot".
"In wrapping up, I think this is up there with the best wallets I have used. It’s a shame about the micro USB charger, but I’m an Android boy and I like having one cable for everything. Overall, if you are looking to jump into cold storage, this is a strong option – the CoolWallet Pro is a great hardware wallet with market-leading features. "
Digital-Currency Plan Falters as Nigerians Defiant on Crypto
"A year after launching Africa’s first digital currency, Nigeria’s central bank is turning to the nation’s three-wheeler taxi operators to speed the adoption of the eNaira, as regulators across the world scrutinize its every move. It’s offering a 5% discount to drivers and passengers of the motorized rickshaws who use the eNaira. It’s the latest attempt to kickstart the central bank digital currency (CBDC), which has so far attracted just one in 200 Nigerians... The relatively low adoption up until this point, while not uncommon for countries in the early phases of launching a digital currency, may be caused by insufficient incentives for commercial banks or mis-targeted consumer messaging, according to John Kiff, managing director of the CBDC Think Tank."
Central Bank of Turkey plans to pilot test a CBDC in 2023
According to Turkey’s Presidential Annual Program for 2023, the Central Bank of Turkey will start piloting a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2023. Many news services are reporting that a Digital Lira will be launched in 2023, but according to Google Translate the key passage in the Annual Program Budget Rationale ("kullanım testlerine başlanacaktır") translates to "usage tests will begin" which sounds like a pilot to me. But it does sound like several proofs of concept (PoC) have been done (the Annual Program calls them "pilots", but if they didn't include "usage tests" then they're PoCs by my definition.
Project mBridge: Connecting economies through CBDC
The BIS Innovation Hub's (BISIH's) Hong Kong Center and its partner central banks published the results of its pilot testing of its mBridge multi-CBDC (mCBDC) multi-currency cross-border transaction platform. Over six weeks in 2022, the platform was put to the test through a pilot involving real-value transactions among 20 commercial banks from four different jurisdictions. Over $12 million was issued on the platform, facilitating over 160 payment and FX payment-versus-payment (PVP) transactions totaling more than $22 million in value. See also: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/10/26/foreign-exchange-transactions-take-center-stage-in-new-bis-cbdc-report/
Foreign Exchange Transactions Take Center Stage in New BIS CBDC Report
""Equipped with the lessons from the pilot and earlier phases of the project, Project mBridge will continue its work," the report said. "This includes the technology-build and testing – including improving on existing functionalities and adding new functionalities to the platform – in an effort to move from the current pilot phase towards MVP and eventually a production-ready system.""
National Bank of Kazakhstan Wraps up CBDC PoC Tests
"The National Bank of Kazakhstan in cooperation with Payment and Financial Technologies Development Center of the National Bank of Kazakhstan launched #retail #CBDC tests last week."
"This document describes the proof-of-concept (PoC) developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the IDB Lab, LACChain, Citi Innovation Labs, and ioBuilders to demonstrate cross-border payments between entities in different countries that involve currency exchange, using digital money represented by tokens -tokenized money- in the LACChain Besu Blockchain Network. For this PoC, Citi played the role of the bank holding the funds; the IDBs headquarters in the U.S. played the role of the sender of tokenized dollars; an individual in Dominican Republic played the role of recipient of tokenized Dominican pesos; LACChain provided the blockchain infrastructure and developed the back end, the smart contracts and the integrations; and ioBuilders provided technical advice and developed the front end."
Debunking the narratives about cryptocurrency and financial inclusion
"There are more direct and impactful ways that we can address financial inclusion concerns rather than use cryptocurrencies. To address the needs of low-income households, for instance, the U.S. government could offer and encourage the use of a robust, real-time payments solution, as other countries have done.[76] (In fact, the Federal Reserve plans to launch the FedNow Service, an instant payment system, in mid-2023.) The U.S. government should also ensure that outreach efforts related to this instant payment system are focused on engaging underserved communities.[77] "
Some have asked me for a summary of my central bank digital currency (CBDC) position, but I'm not inclined to be so absolute and dogmatic about the topic, since it's all so jurisdiction specific, but the Digital Euro Association (DEA) CBDC Manifesto comes pretty close to expressing my views on retail CBDC.
Kazakhstan to build central bank digital currency on BNB Chain
The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) will test the Binance blockchain network BNB Chain for potential integration into the country's Digital Tenge retail CBDC. This comes a week after the NBK completed a week of CBDC proof-of-concept tests, imitating an actual production environment with Digital Tenge wallets provided through local financial institutions' interfaces, with 200 real central bank staffers and 4 merchants. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6991206176797409280/
The Société Universitaire Européenne de Recherches Financières (SUERF) published a briefing paper that highlights some of the under-researched trade-offs in central bank digital currency (CBDC) design.
Heng Wang has written one of the most comprehensive summaries of China's CBDC approach I've seen recently. He argues that the role of the state, the potential cross-border use of e-CNY, and China’s proactiveness in international governance are the core features of China’s CBDC. These features contribute to China’s CBDC approach, a possible selective reshaping of international financial order. He adopts a multifactor analytical framework which explores major economic, political economy, legal and regulatory factors affecting the sustainability of China’s CBDC approach to promote a holistic understanding of e-CNY’s evolution.
Submission to the House of Commons Treasury Committee - Digital Currencies Inquiry
"This paper was a joint a response from Martin Walker (Center for Evidence Based Management) and Izabella Kaminska (Financial Times) was a response to the inquiries request for information and analysis on the topic. The paper discusses the definitions of the term “Digital Currrencies”, the role of cryptocurrencies in the UK and explains the potential and the risks of more widespread adoption. It also provides an overview of Distributed ledger technology, its history, technical characteristics and potential applications in modern banking."
Speech by PBOC Governor YI Gang at the Hong Kong FinTech Week 2022
In a Hong Kong Fintech Week 2022 speech, Yi Gang, Governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), described the “delicate balance between protecting privacy and combating illicit activities" in developing its e-CNY central bank digital currency (CBDC). "The e-CNY operates on a two-tiered system. At tier one, the PBOC supplies e-CNY to the authorized operators and processes inter-institutional transaction information only. At tier two, the authorized operators only collect the personal information necessary for their exchange and circulation services to the public. Transaction-related data is encrypted for storage. Sensitive consumer information is de-identified to non-transacting parties. Entities and individuals are prohibited from arbitrary inquiry or information usage without rigorous legal authorization. There are small-amount soft wallets and hard wallets to meet the need for small-value anonymous transactions, both online and offline."
MAS Report on Potential Uses of a Purpose-Bound Digital Singapore Dollar
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) released a report detailing potential uses of a purpose-bound digital Singapore dollar (SGD) and the supporting infrastructure required, marking the successful completion of Phase 1 of Project Orchid. While MAS has assessed that the case for a retail CBDC in Singapore is not compelling for now, Project Orchid aims to build the technical capabilities and competencies necessary for MAS to issue a retail CBDC, should the need arise. Phase 1 explored the concept of purpose-bound digital SGD that enables senders to specify conditions, such as validity period and types of shops, when making transfers in digital SGD. Some of its use cases will be tested through trials with the public and private sector in 2022 and 2023. The next phase of Project Orchid will look at what the best ledger technology is and how this can be integrated with the existing infrastructure. https://www.mas.gov.sg/publications/monographs-or-information-paper/2022/project-orchid-whitepaper
India's Central Bank to Start Wholesale CBDC Pilot Nov. 1
The Reserve Bank of India [RBI] will launch a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) on November 1. The use case for the wholesale Digital Rupee is the "settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities" because it would reduce transaction costs. Nine prominent banks have been identified for participation in the pilot. A pilot of the retail version is planned for launch within a month in select locations in closed user groups comprising customers and merchants. https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=54616
Forget El Salvador, Scotland Could Show Us The Future Of Money
"Surely it would be possible for Scotland to embrace the next wave of change in the technology of money (digital currency) and generate yet more innovation. The regulatory environment has been changing to encourage competition in Europe, the Scots could build on this. The European Commission’s Directive on Electronic Money, the Payment Services Directives have already created the institutions — the Electronic Money Institutions (ELMI) and the Payment Institution (PI) to allow Scotland to drive innovation forward."
Cold hard (digital) cash: the economics of central bank digital currency
The European Central Bank (ECB) published an article that provides an overview of the economics of central bank digital currency (CBDC). It first outlines the economic forces that shape the rise of digital money and motivate the current debate. It then looks at the implications for monetary policy and financial stability before discussing policy issues and challenges. Finally, it highlight several areas where the understanding of digital money could be improved by further research.
Central Bank Digital Currency: When Price and Bank Stability Collide
We build a stylized, nominal Diamond-and-Dybvig (1983) model, a consolidated central bank conducts maturity transformation, issuing on-demand, nominal liabilities in the form of an account-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) to citizens and investing the funds in a real asset. We show, the central bank's classic role as the guardian of price stability is in fundamental conflict with its role as a financial intermediator. Implementation of the socially optimal allocation requires a commitment to inflation. Commitment to price stability jeopardizes the real return on currency, and causes runs. Central bank runs manifest themselves as a `run on the price level'.
Anti-money laundering: The world's least effective policy experiment?
"This paper uses anti-money laundering as a case study to illustrate the benefits of cross-disciplinary engagement when major policymaking functions develop separately from public policy design principles. It finds that the anti-money laundering policy intervention has less than 0.1 percent impact on criminal finances, compliance costs exceed recovered criminal funds more than a hundred times over, and banks, taxpayers and ordinary citizens are penalized more than criminal enterprises. The data are poorly validated and methodological inconsistencies rife, so findings cannot be definitive, but there is a huge gap between policy intent and results. The scale of the problem not addressed by “solutions” repeatedly “fixing” the same perceived issues suggest that blaming banks for not “properly” implementing anti-money laundering laws is a convenient fiction. Fundamental problems may lie instead with the design of the core policy prescription itself. With an important policymaking function operating largely as an independent silo of specialist knowledge, this paper suggests that active engagement with critical, diverse perspectives, and deeper connections between the anti-money laundering movement and other disciplines (notably, policy effectiveness, outcomes and evaluation principles of public policy) should contribute to better results."
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, Banque de France, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Swiss National Bank launched Project Mariana, to investigate the use of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to automate FX trading and settlement. The project will explore the use of automated market makers (AMMs) for the cross-border exchange of hypothetical CHF, EUR and S$ wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). AMM protocols combine smart contracts with pooled liquidity to price and transfer digital assets automatically.
India’s CBDC makes glitch-free start in the world of real-time trades
"India’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) made a steady and glitch-free start in the world of real-time trades Tuesday, with several banks using the virtual money backed by Mint Road to settle nearly 50 government bond transactions cumulatively worth about Rs 275 crore."
