I’ve updated my tabulation of central bank digital currency (#CBDC) explorers. There are no new entries but some links have been updated (e.g., Australia, Brazil and New Zealand).
New Zealand’s Reserve Bank consulting public on a potential CBDC
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will open up public consultations regarding a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the emergence of new digital forms of money including stablecoins. “The potential for a CBDC to help address some of the downsides of reducing physical cash use and services is something we want to explore for New Zealand. A CBDC, similar to digital cash, might well be part of the solution, but we need to test our assessment of the issues and proposed approach before developing any firm proposals.”
France, Singapore complete cross-border CBDC test
“The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Banque de France successfully completed a wholesale cross-border payment and settlement experiment using multiple central bank digital currencies (mCBDCs). The experiment between the two central banks, supported by J.P. Morgan’s Onyx, simulated cross-border transactions and cross-currency transactions involving a Singapore dollar CBDC and a euro CBDC, and was conducted using a permissioned, privacy-enabled blockchain based on Quorum technology.”
“El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele blessed El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law, asserting that making bitcoin legal tender would reduce remittance costs. But as things currently stand, the cost of using bitcoin to send remittances to El Salvador is not, in fact, cheaper than traditional money transfer services. Remittances sent via traditional money-transfer services have a realized cost of only 2.85%. But, remittances sent via bitcoin will require Salvadorans to cough up much more than 5% to obtain the dollars they want. It’s clear that remittance costs are not the reason that Bukele is preaching from the bitcoin pulpit.” For more detail see: https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2021/06/Bukeles-Bitcoin-Blunder-Final.pdf
Visa’s crypto-linked cards see continued growth
Visa is currently partnering with 50 crypto platforms on card programs to allow users to convert and spend digital currency at 70 million merchants worldwide. These programs don’t require coffee shops, dry cleaners, or other businesses to directly accept cryptocurrencies at the checkout. The process uses ‘tap and go’ without the complexity of new acceptance points or cryptographic keys. Visa has been growing their relationships with digital currency platforms like FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and CoinZoom.
*For those interested in intra-day updates and news that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, please check out my Diigo fintech bookmarks: https://www.diigo.com/user/kiffmeister/Fintech
