Bank of Jamaica going all out for JAM-DEX success
The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) is reportedly working to upgrade user-facing payment infrastructure to ramp up acceptance of its JAM-DEX central bank digital currency (CBDC). That will include funding the upgrade 10,000 of the more modern point-of-sale (POS) machines to support the JAM-DEX QR codes. Once the upgrades are done, the BOJ will relaunch its JAM-DEX marketing campaign to hopefully jump-start the underwhelming reception so far. However, the POS upgrades will still leave over 40,000 older machines that are not upgradable. [Read more at the Jamaica Observer][The article is based on a November 2023 interview published on CentralBanking.com behind a paywall I can’t penetrate]
Leveling the playing field for stablecoins
Central Banking published an article by Manmohan Singh (IMF) and Charles Kahn (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) on the impact of non-bank (e.g., fintech) stablecoin issuers getting access to central bank reserve (or “master”) accounts and payment rails. This will allow them to offer instant (“T+0”) settlement and compete with banks in the payments space. If banks respond by also offering T+0 settlement, they will lose the potential intra-day float they earn on incoming payment flows by lagging outgoing payments. However, the article points out that large banks can achieve most of those multilateral netting benefits if their hubs have an hour to net payments. [Read more at Central Banking]
FYI here are some of my upcoming speaking engagements:
– Digital Euro Conference 2024 (Frankfurt on February 29)[Register here and get a 20% discount with the Kiffmeister20 code]
*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).
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