Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260704)

July 4, 2026July 4, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Bank of Russia Announces Banks’ Readiness for Digital Ruble Widespread Use (Tass)

Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina reported that banks and major retailers are technically ready to support broad use of the digital ruble central bank digital currency (CBDC). Preparatory work has focused on integrating systemically important banks and large merchants into the acceptance infrastructure and on developing functionality such as smart contracts and the option to host digital ruble wallets on commercial bank balance sheets rather than solely on the central bank balance sheet. Major banks will be required to allow their clients to transact with digital rubles starting on September 1, 2026. [Tass]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

FYI 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.

Jurisdictions Where Retail CBDC Is Being Explored

July 2, 2026July 2, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

I’ve updated my tabulation of the central banks that have launched, piloted, experimented with and/or researched retail central bank digital currency (CBDC)(see below). The table was compiled from publicly available sources, including media and central bank websites, and not verified through official channels. If I’m missing anything, or you find mistakes in the tabulation, please let me know in the comments!

According to my count, 115 central banks have launched retail CBDC explorations based on publicly-available information. It doesn’t include the two that started issuing retail CBDC and then shut the platforms down (Ecuador and Finland). Four jurisdictions have seen full launches (Bahamas, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Nigeria), 13 pilot launches (where the central bank is/was issuing real CBDC to a limited subset of external users), 23 have seen proof-of-concept work started, and 75 started and remain in the pure research phase. These are less than the numbers published by the Atlantic Council, because they count individual countries in currency zones (e.g., Eurozone). BTW for those who want a more historical view of CBDC developments I strongly recommend the CBDCTracker.org database.

The table below also indicates in green which 29 projects are truly “live” where “live” is defined as those that are currently in active launch (3), pilot (5) or proof-of-concept (8) phases, plus others that have published research updates during the last 12 months (13).

Notes: The difference between a “pilot” and “proof of concept” (POC) is that a pilot involves actual users, whereas a POC does not, even though some POCs may involve central bank staff. Also, because the tabulation is based only on publicly-available information, it is likely that there is some POC activity in the “research” category, but no announcements have been made. Finally, entries that are crossed through indicate that the projects have been shut down, or put on hold (“watchful waiting”).

BTW 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.

Jurisdictions Where Retail CBDC Is Being Explored Download

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260701)

July 1, 2026July 1, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Project Agila: Results, Technical Findings and Policy Implications (BSP)

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) published a paper that concludes a wholesale central bank digital currency (WCBDC) on Hyperledger Fabric is technically feasible for 24/7 interbank settlement and could serve as a conditional back-up to PhilPaSS Plus, subject to major design, risk, and legal work. The two-phase Project Agila sandbox showed Oracle’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform can support full WCBDC lifecycle operations, programmable payments and high volumes, but with clear constraints around transaction finality, access controls, cybersecurity, and scalability at larger loads. The report frames WCBDC as reserves-on-ledger and potential high-quality liquid asset, analyzes implications under the National Payment Systems Act and BSP Charter, and identifies systemically important payment system treatment, access, holding limits, and charter changes as key policy questions. It recommends focusing next on tokenized securities settlement and institutional cross-border use cases while hardening governance, IT risk, and integration with existing financial market infrastructures (FMIs). [BSP]

Stablecoins and Anonymous Money (BIS)

Gita Gopinath argues that global stablecoin usage is structurally evolving toward maximum pseudonymity, in tension with decades of policy that pushed traditional money toward transparency. Empirically, most United States dollar‑pegged stablecoins (Tether and USD Coin) are held in self‑custody wallets and increasingly transferred wallet‑to‑wallet, with regulated exchanges and issuers involved in a shrinking share of flows, even on the most identifiable chains. This pattern undermines tax collection, financial‑crime controls, capital controls, and sanctions that depend on residence and identity information, while exploiting lighter compliance burdens relative to banks. Existing United States and European frameworks focus on issuers and centralized exchanges, leaving self‑custody and offshore activity largely outside ex ante monitoring, raising unresolved questions on how far regulation should extend into wallet‑level and cross‑border infrastructure. [BIS]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Protected: Kiffmeister’s Digital Currency Monitor, June 2026

July 1, 2026July 1, 2026 ~ kiffmeister

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260624)

June 24, 2026June 24, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Digital Euro: MEPs Want to Ensure Sovereignty, Privacy and Financial Stability (European Parliament)

The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee adopted its negotiating position on the digital euro by 43 votes to 14, part of a three-file single currency package. The digital euro would be account-based online and local-storage offline, with privacy-by-design using zero-knowledge proofs and no European Central Bank (ECB) access to personal identification data; basic services and offline payments would be fee-free; most merchants required to accept it. European Commission-set individual holding limits, calibrated on ECB recommendations and reviewed biennially, protect financial stability; businesses may accumulate incoming digital euro payments for up to 24 hours only; no interest accrues. The ECB must complete a rulebook, infrastructure, and pilots before a minimum 24-month rollout. A companion file allows non-euro EU member state payment service providers to distribute the digital euro under the same rules; a third file reinforces cash as legal tender and prohibits merchants from refusing it. Council negotiations on all three files are the next legislative step. [European Parliament]

Digital Pound Lab: Phase 2 Update (BoE)

The Bank of England (BoE) published a Phase 2 interim update for its Digital Pound Lab, developed with Accenture, ahead of the phase’s July 2026 conclusion. BoE-developed use cases demonstrated include one-time aliases for privacy-preserving payments, confirmation of payee, group “kitty” payments using conditional locks, external service interface provider connections enabling third-party app integration, allowances extended to e-commerce, and usage-based streaming micropayments. Twelve private sector participants are testing additional use cases; two featured to date are Crunchfish, demonstrating deferred offline payments with a reserve-pay-settle lifecycle and double-spend controls, and TECHT Labs, demonstrating conditional business-to-business payments via smart contracts. The BoE explicitly disclaimed policy endorsement of any participant designs. A full Phase 2 report and webinar are expected in July 2026. [BoE]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260623)

June 23, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

US Senate Passes Housing Bill With Four-Year Fed CBDC Ban (Decrypt)

The U.S. Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in an 85-5 vote, a bipartisan package meant to boost housing supply and stop large investors from snapping up single-family homes. The bill would also bar the Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC), or any substantially similar distributed ledger technology (DLT) based digital asset, until the end of 2030, including via intermediaries. The text includes a carve‑out for private “dollar‑denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private, and fully preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency”. The bill now goes back to the House of Representatives, where quick approval is expected. [Decrypt]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260622)

June 22, 2026June 22, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Bank of England Policy Statement and Draft Rules on Regulating Systemic Stablecoins (BoE)

The Bank of England (BoE) published a policy statement and draft code of practice for systemic stablecoin issuers, reflecting extensive engagement with industry and stakeholders that resulted in targeted revisions to the proposals consulted on in 2025. The maximum share held in short-term U.K. government debt has been increased from 60% to 70%, with the remainder in central bank deposits. Also, a temporary issuance guardrail will apply to each systemic stablecoin, initially set at £40 billion, dropping the holding limits (£20,000 on individuals and £10 million on corporations) proposed in the 2025 draft. However, the BoE will ban issuers (directly or indirectly) from paying interest or dividends directly to users for simply holding stablecoins, but will permit activity-based rewards, similarly to the U.S. CLARITY Act currently winding its way through Congress. The BoE is also considering offering a backstop lending facility for eligible, solvent, and viable systemic stablecoin issuers, which would allow them to borrow against short-term sterling-denominated UK government debt securities in a limited set of circumstances. [BoE]

Bank of Korea Digital Currency to Connect with Bank Account Networks (Electronic Times)

Korea’s Electronic Times reports that, as part of Project Han River Phase 2, participating banks are integrating deposit-token infrastructure with their core banking ledgers inside the Bank of Korea (BOK) Naver Cloud test environment. Under the architecture, the BOK issues wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) to banks as the interbank settlement asset, while banks issue deposit tokens that users spend via bank-app wallets. The new work links deposit tokens to core deposit, transfer, and accounting systems, including interest accrual and payment, and builds treasury-voucher systems for programmable government subsidy disbursement. Sources frame this as a pre-institutionalization step, moving from “can it settle payments” to “can it run inside production banking systems.” [Electronic Times]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260619)

June 19, 2026June 19, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Bipartisan US Housing Bill Bans Retail CBDC until 2030 (Senate Banking Committee)

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee released the latest text of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, with backing from the leading Republicans and Democrats on both committees, which includes a ban on central bank digital currency (CBDC) until December 31, 2030. The Act defines a CBDC as a U.S. dollar‑denominated direct Federal Reserve liability widely available to the general public. The text explicitly carves out wholesale CBDC and tokenized reserves (“any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private, and fully preserves the privacy protections of U.S. coins and physical currency. The Senate and the House are expected to formally pass the bill within weeks, and the President is expected to sign the bill once passed. [Senate Banking Committee]

HKEX and HKMA Launch Wholesale CBDC Pilot Project to Facilitate After-Hours Derivatives Trading (HKMA)

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) will run a joint pilot using e‑HKD wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) operating on a 24/7 basis to fund advance margin for derivatives after‑hours trading while keeping existing operational workflows unchanged. The aim is to improve flexibility and efficiency versus the current cut‑off, under which clearing participants must submit advance margin deposit requests to Hong Kong Futures Exchange Clearing Corporation (HKCC) by 15:00 for them to count toward the after‑hours session. Participants in HKCC can optionally conduct real‑value trial transactions, with broader adoption contingent on regulatory approval and market readiness. [HKMA]

The Trade-Offs Between Different Designs of Tokenized Systems (BoC)

The Bank of Canada (BoC) posted a blog that argues that tokenized systems’ core features—programmability and openness—are not unique to decentralized architectures and can be implemented on centralized platforms as well. It defines design space along two dimensions: validation (centralized, decentralized permissioned, decentralized permissionless) and access (public versus private), and emphasizes that trust models, not “blockchain” per se, determine who controls the ledger and visibility of state. The authors frame the key trade-off as performance versus transparency: centralized systems maximize throughput but minimize transparency; decentralized permissionless systems do the opposite; decentralized permissioned systems sit in between. [BoC]

Digital Assets and Derivatives: Where Next? (ISDA)

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) published a paper that argues digital assets can be integrated into derivatives markets at institutional scale if settlement, collateral and prudential frameworks are engineered to fit existing regulatory regimes rather than rebuilt from scratch. The paper documents how distributed ledger settlement, continuous margining and portfolio compression can reduce exposure persistence and x‑value adjustment (XVA) type capital charges by roughly 40–45% for a stylized crypto derivatives portfolio, even with unchanged market risk. It emphasizes that balance-sheet efficiency is constrained less by token design than by legal finality, collateral enforceability, exposure recognition under Basel crypto standards and the availability of cash‑leg settlement assets such as tokenized deposits or wholesale central bank digital currencies. Key unresolved issues include conflicts of law for on‑chain property rights, heterogeneous margin model treatment of crypto exposures, limited margin period of risk grade liquidation channels for digital collateral and the need for common standards like the Common Domain Model to avoid infrastructure fragmentation. [ISDA]

Data Externalities, Market Power, and the Optimal CBDC Design (BoC)

The Bank of Canada (BoC) published a paper by Cheng, Davoodalhosseini, Chiu, and Jiang that shows that central bank digital currency (CBDC) economics is complicated by private payment service provider (PSP) transaction data harvesting and sale. A well-designed CBDC should collect some transaction data itself — for fraud detection and financial crime monitoring — but not sell it. Counterintuitively, a U.S.-calibrated model finds that introducing a CBDC would increase rather than reduce PSP data collection, because PSP market power currently dominates – i.e., public competition pushes PSPs to expand their customer base, raising aggregate data output. The reverse holds if PSP competition intensifies, in which case a CBDC designed to curb data monetization would shrink PSPs’ market share and reduce aggregate data production. [BoC]

Stablecoin Remuneration on Centralized Crypto-Asset Exchanges (BIS)

The BIS published a paper by Huang, Tarashev and Wang that argues that the way that crypto exchanges remunerate customer stablecoin holdings drives very different macrofinancial effects. Exchanges either pass through income from low‑risk reserve assets (“reserve-based” remuneration) or use revenues from lending, margin finance and trading (“activity-based”). In the reserve‑based case (e.g., Coinbase), stablecoin remuneration closely tracks policy rates, while in the activity‑based case (e.g., Binance) yields are highly volatile and tied to crypto market conditions and funding demand. Econometric decompositions show crypto‑activity shocks dominate benchmark‑rate shocks in explaining activity‑based yields, especially during 2024 rallies. If stablecoins scale, either of these remuneration models could alter bank and money‑market funding, introduce boom‑bust dynamics and run risks, and reshape monetary policy transmission, with regulatory capital and liquidity requirements a key open mitigant. [BIS]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260617)

June 17, 2026June 17, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Programmable Purpose-Bound Digital Tenge for Public Spending (LinkedIn)

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance now requires government expenditures above 100 million tenge (equivalent to about $200,000) to be executed in programmable Digital Tenge central bank digital currency (CBDC) with end‑to‑end identifiers and event‑triggered settlement. Initial use cases include construction, health, fuel, transport, special funds, certain budget loans, and research grants, with future extensions to utilities, energy, border infrastructure, subsidized lending, and quasi‑public entities. The funds are “colored” to their purpose. For example, tenge allocated for a road cannot be redirected to anything else. And payment is released only after a confirming event, whether an act of completed work, an electronic invoice, or a registry record. [LinkedIn]

The Impact of Potential Retail CBDC on the Canadian Financial System During a Severe Recession (BoC)

The Bank of Canada (BoC) published a staff analytical paper by Sofia Priazhkina that examines how a non-interest-bearing retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) could affect the financial stability of Canada’s systemically important banks during a severe recession. Stress test results show that the banks remain resilient, maintaining key regulatory ratios even under high CBDC demand. To manage funding outflows, banks scale back balance sheet growth and replace some lost deposits with alternative funding. Profitability stays strong overall, though short-term volatility may occur. To reduce potential risks, the paper recommends a gradual CBDC rollout with holding limits, well-timed capital buffer adjustments, liquidity regulation updates, early communication of regulatory changes, and coordination with central bank balance sheet policies. [BoC]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.

Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (20260615)

June 15, 2026June 16, 2026 ~ kiffmeister ~ Leave a comment

Report on the National Payment System in Peru (BCRP)

[March 2026] The Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (BCRP) published its March 2026 national payments report, detailing progress on its “Dinero Digital” retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot launched in October 2024 with telecom partner Bitel (via the BiPay wallet). Designed to test digital payments in unbanked rural sectors, the pilot reached 67,000 active users, an average of 91,000 daily transactions, and S/ 4.2 million in circulation by late February 2025. By December 2025, active users expanded to 172,000, averaging 47,600 daily transactions, with S/ 10.0 million circulating directly among end users. The notable drop in transaction velocity likely stems from the cooling of early adoption biases and introductory marketing incentives as the pilot transitioned from tech-centric early adopters into deeper, lower-velocity rural segments. [BCRP]

ASX Admits Misleading Conduct Relating to CHESS Replacement Project (ASIC)

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) agreed to pay a A$20.5 million civil penalty and A$3 million in legal costs to settle proceedings brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) over its failed blockchain-based replacement for the Chess post-trade system. The regulator alleged ASX misled the market in February 2022 by stating the project was “progressing well” despite internally classifying it as “red,” indicating significant unresolved issues, before subsequently delaying and then cancelling the project and writing off approximately A$245–255 million in costs. [ASIC]

Euro Area TIPS Payment Platform Volumes Grew by 82.5% in 2025 (ECB)

The European Central Bank (ECB) published its 2025 TARGET (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross settlement Express Transfer) Services Annual Report. It reported that the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) system experienced very strong 2025 growth: instant payments settled in TIPS rose 82.5% to 2.47 billion transactions, driven mainly by the Instant Payments Regulation, in force since April 2024, which requires Euro Area banks offering standard euro credit transfers to receive 24/7 instant euro payments from January 9, 2025 and to send them from October 9, 2025. Also, in April 2025, it became possible to settle Danish krone payments instantly in TIPS (the Swedish krone joined in 2024). Also, in June 2025, the TIPS cross-currency settlement layer, that enables linked settlement across currencies and underpins interlinking projects with other fast payment systems, was implemented and successfully tested and formally activated by the ECB, Danmarks Nationalbank, and Sveriges Riksbank. In addition, the ECB is working on supporting 24/7 instant-payment funding. [ECB]

BTW if you want to see a complete database of my DFC-related posts going back years, including many that didn’t make the Daily Digest cut, click here.