Thai government to use blockchain utility tokens for mass giveaway
The Pheu Thai Party, the leader of Thailand’s new coalition party, plans to follow through on its policy for a 10,000 baht giveaway to every person aged 16 or older in early 2024. The economic stimulus will be in the form of a digital “utility token” based on blockchain and using a digital wallet. Usage will be restricted to within 4 kilometers of the holder’s home, and they can only be spent .on certain things such as food, water and medicine. They cannot use it online, nor can it be exchanged for cash, and will expire after six months. [Read more at Ledger Insights]
Customers of Indian banks can scan UPI QR code and pay via digital rupee
Growing numbers of Indian commercial banks have gone live with Unified Payments Interface (UPI) interoperability on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) digital rupee central bank digital currency (CBDC) rupee app. With this move, the bank’s customers will be able to scan any UPI QR code through the banks’ digital rupee apps and pay for transactions. The UPI is the national payment portal operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a division of the RBI. The NPCI provides the infrastructure for both the UPI and the digital rupee. [Read more at CNBCTV]
China insists digital yuan be usable everywhere
Mu Changchun, the head of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Digital Currency Research Institute, said that the digital yuan must be available for all retail scenarios, with standard QR codes being one of the first steps. He also wants to see wholesale payment systems becoming interoperable with the central bank digital currency (CBDC), and he envisions the digital yuan and smart contracts being used for securities transactions, enabling settlement on a delivery versus payment (DvP) or payment versus payment (PvP) basis. [Read the speech at EastMoney.com]
GSMA 2023 state of the industry report on mobile money
The GSMA published its 2023 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money, showing the growth and the potential of mobile money networks in a post-pandemic world. Africa, and particularly Sub-Sahara Africa, continues to drive that growth. In 2022, registered mobile money accounts rose from 1.4 billion in 2021 to 1.6 billion in 2022, and transaction values grew from $1 trillion to around $1.26 trillion. Bill payments (largely energy bills) via mobile money grew faster than all other use cases, making it the third most common transaction after P2P transfers and combined cash-in/cash-out transactions. [Read more at the GSMA]
BIS and Reserve Bank of India announce winners of G20 TechSprint 2023
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the winners of the G20 TechSprint 2023 challenge. From the short list of 21 teams three winners for three problem statements were chosen [Read more at the BIS] :
- Team Secretarium Ltd. from the UK won the category for problem statement #1, on fighting money laundering, combating financing of terrorism, tax and sanctions evasion, with their solution on transaction monitoring and protecting anonymity and privacy using secure privacy technology.
- Team Millicent Labs from the UK won the category for problem statement #2, on improving liquidity in cross-border payments between emerging and developing countries’ currencies, with their hybrid decentralised exchange for CBDCs, which features automated market makers and traditional order books, to optimise liquidity and reduce volatility risk.
- Team Knox Networks from the US won the category for problem statement #3 on developing multilateral cross-border CBDC platforms, with their multilateral CBDC solution based on File-Based Digital Assets (FBDAs).
*For those interested in intra-day updates, check out my searchable Diigo Fintech developments database, which is also a good place to go to query for past developments: https://www.diigo.com/user/kiffmeister/ART.
Kiffmeister’s 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 (only) if you work at a central bank, ministry of finance or international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank) and 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.
The Sovereign Official Digital Association (SODA) is a technology-agnostic firm offering advisory services at the intersection of central banking, digital finance and the web3 industry, aiming to make public digital money a reality. SODA believes institutions in the existing financial ecosystem should have access to the tools and resources they need to move from discussion to action. SODA offers ‘real life’ use cases to help test digital money and drive adoption as central banks and other public institutions explore the future of a more financially inclusive world powered by interoperable blockchain-based networks. SODA would love you to join us on this journey – please get in touch (chris@sodapublicmoney.org).
Satoshi Capital Advisors is a New York-based, global advisory firm that works with central banks, governments, and the private sector to architect, implement, and operate varying initiatives. Satoshi Capital Advisors’ central bank work revolves around CBDC architecture and implementation, providing advisory services from research phase through to growth phase. Utilizing a product-market fit and technology agnostic approach to CBDC architecture and implementation enables Satoshi Capital Advisors to build tailored solutions, bespoke to local financial system nuances. Satoshi Capital Advisors welcomes requests from central bank officials for virtual and in-person CBDC workshops. [Click here for more information]
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