SWIFT to Add Blockchain-Based Ledger to its Infrastructure Stack [SWIFT]
SWIFT will integrate a blockchain-based shared ledger into its global financial infrastructure, aiming to enable instant, always-on cross-border payments and enhance digital finance across over 200 countries. Partnering with more than 30 major financial institutions and developing a prototype with Consensys, the initiative will deliver real-time validation, sequencing, and interoperable transactions for regulated tokenized value, while maintaining SWIFT’s focus on resilience, security, and compliance. Supported by an international coalition of leading banks, this move advances SWIFT’s strategy to simultaneously upgrade current payment rails and build new digital pathways. [Source: SWIFT] The prototype will reportedly run on the Ethereum Layer-2 platform Linea. [Source: The Big Whale]
Make the Digital Euro Work for Merchants to Ensure it Meets its True Potential (IRE)
Independent Retail Europe (IRE), part of the Merchant Payments Coalition Europe, urged European policymakers to ensure the digital euro is designed to benefit merchants as well as consumers. The coalition argues for a simple, uniform transaction fee capped at 4 cents, allowing merchants to incentivize adoption and keep payment costs low, and for digital euro transactions to be accessible both online and offline without added complexity. They recommend prioritizing in-store and e-commerce payments over person-to-person use, enabling merchants to hold and use digital euros for supplier payments, and building a single, standardized European payments infrastructure to foster competition and integration. The statement emphasizes that the digital euro’s potential for innovation, cost reduction, and resilience depends on transparent, inclusive, and merchant-focused legislative and technical decisions. [Source: IRE]
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I produce a monthly digest of digital fiat currency (DFC) developments exclusively for the official sector (e.g., central banks, ministries of finance and international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank)) plus academics and firms that are active in the DFC space (commercial banks, technology providers, consultants, etc.). (DFCs include central bank digital currency (CBDC), stablecoins and tokenized deposits.) It goes out via email on the first business day of every month, and if you’re interested in being on the mailing list, please email me at john@kiffmeister.com.
