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The Bank of Russia (BoR) revealed the logo for its digital ruble central bank digital currency (CBDC), and published the transaction fees. Person-to-person (P2P) transactions will be free of charge. However, starting from 2025, business-to-business (B2B) transactions will cost 15 rubles ($0.16) each, while person-to-business (P2B) transactions will be charged 0.3% of the total transaction sum up to a maximum of 1,500 rubles ($15.65). The P2B fee drops to 0.2% up to a maximum of 10 rubles ($10) when paying for housing and public services. https://cbr.ru/fintech/dr/doc_dr/tarif/dr_t-1/

The Central Bank of Iceland (CBI) has gone live with a new real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) and instant payment platform. Developed by Italy's SIA, the new payments infrastructure has been implemented as a single platform capable of processing bank-to-bank, P2P, P2B and B2B transactions in a consolidated operating model. https://www.cb.is/publications/news/news/2020/10/19/New-interbank-payment-system-launched-at-the-end-of-the-week/

Crunchfish Digital Cash separates the payment process into three distinct steps - Reserve-Pay-Settle: 1. Reserve funds in a bank account and represent it as an offline balance in a Digital Cash Wallet. 2. Pay by debiting the offline balance in the Digital Cash Wallet. Offline payments are transferred using proximity interaction, e.g. QR or BLE, and are verified in a Digital Cash Verifier (for P2B transactions) or in the Digital Cash Wallet (for P2P transactions). 3. Settle Digital Cash transactions by transferring money from the payer's bank account with the reserved funds to the payee's bank account. The transfer can be initiated by both the payee and the payer, whoever gets connectivity first.

Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) has unveiled its Filia Unplugged offline payment solution that can be integrated into existing digital payment platforms, including tokenized deposit systems, instant payment systems, or mobile money services. It enables use cases such as peer-to-peer payments (P2P) or payment-to-business (P2B) payments. The solution stores monetary tokens on a hardware wallet (e.g. the SIM card of a smartphone) and requires only two wallets to operate, which can then be used without an online connection, for example via near field communication (NFC).

The Bank of Ghana (BOG) published the results of its recent eCedi retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project. The pilot, which used Giesecke+Devrient's (G+D's) Filia CBDC platform , involved individuals and merchants of diverse demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, using mobile applications, smart cards and point-of-sale (POS) terminals for four months. Offline functionality, using smartcards and Filia Connect devices, was successfully tested in a carefully chosen off-grid location, with person-to-business (P2B) being the primary focus. Post-pilot surveys indicated a strong possibility of all participants adopting the eCedi if it were to go live. However, there are no immediate plans to fully launch the eCedi, given the central bank's more pressing need to prioritize economic stabilization. https://www.bog.gov.gh/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-eCedi-Report-221024.pdf

[June 2023] Digital Inverted Time-based one-time passwords (TOTP) authentication can be a practical method for buyers to prove that they made a payment to a cost-sensitive offline merchant. Using TOTP we can establish a secure channel between the payment backend and the seller operating an offline PoS. Our solution around the limitations of the CAP theorem [6] is thus to securely heal the network partition by establishing cryptographically secured communication via an untrusted buyer's device. This allows the payment system to assure consistency despite the merchant not having a connected endpoint under their control. In practice, it may suffice for sellers to only selectively check the TOTP code to still create an effective deterrent against buyers using fake payment applications. Even merchants that are generally operating online could use our design as part of an inexpensive contingency plan to continue secure operations during network outages.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) "Project Hangang River" wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) backed tokenized deposit pilot is reportedly preparing to launch a second phase as early as October. The current three-month (April 1 to June 30, 2025) phase involves about 100,000 participants, and is limited to person-to-business (P2B) payments (for goods and services at online and offline merchants). In the next phase, person-to-person (P2P) transfers will be added, along with expanded use cases and a full rollout of a digital voucher program for welfare payments by local governments.