I’ve updated my tabulation of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) explorers to add the Banque de France and Banque Centrale du Luxembourg Project Venus. [Download the tabulation here]
The pandemic, cash and retail payment behavior: insights from the future of payments database
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a paper uses a new “Future of Payments” database to document a number of salient patterns of retail payment behavior during and after the pandemic. It finds that cash in circulation, use of card-not-present transactions and downloads of payment apps all spiked when the pandemic was more severe (ie during strict lockdowns, periods of restricted mobility and periods with higher numbers of new cases). However, changes were less pronounced in countries with higher mobile penetration, and recent data suggest that some effects reversed once lockdowns were eased, and mobility rebounded. [Read more at the BIS]
Fnality, HQLAX Demonstrate Cross-Chain Repo Swap Pilot
Fnality and HQLAX demonstrated together with Banco Santander, Goldman Sachs and UBS, the first cross-chain repo swap pilot across Corda and Enterprise Ethereum, paving the way for the settlement of intraday transactions. This is part of Fnality’s mission to provide its participants with a single pool of liquidity to facilitate payments (P), cross-currency payments (PvP) and delivery versus payment (DvP) use cases. This pilot also proves interoperability across the Fnality Payment System and HQLAX’s Digital Collateral Registry, bridging Corda and Enterprise Ethereum. Fnality was founded to create a network of decentralised financial market Infrastructures (dFMIs) to deliver the means of payment-on-chain in wholesale banking markets, based on wholesale stablecoins backed by central bank reserves. The HQLAᵡ operating model leverages distributed ledger technology to enable atomic delivery verses delivery (DvD) for baskets of securities residing at multiple custodians. [Read more at Fnality]
Kiffmeister’s Global Central Bank Digital Currency Monthly Monitor
Just a reminder that I produce a monthly digest of central bank digital currency (CBDC) developments exclusively for the official sector. So for any of you out there who work for a central bank, ministry of finance or international financial institution who would like to receive it by email on the first business day of every month, please DM me on LinkedIn or email me at chronicles@kiffmeister.com.
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