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On February 12, 2023, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) published its Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) Programme to accelerate the digital transformation in the financial services sector. It comprises implementation of nine key initiatives, including the issuance of central bank digital currency (CBDC) for cross-border and domestic uses.

"As sovereign issuers around the world contemplate the introduction of retail central bank digital currencies, a digital complement to physical cash, stakeholders face a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to steward this evolution. Digital cash should not only embody the fundamental attributes of its physical counterpart but also offer additional enhancements that can serve the emerging needs of society. The dematerialisation of cash promises to unlock efficiencies and spur financial innovation. One such feature is the automated behaviour of money and transactions - programmability."

UK Finance released the results of the experimentation phase of the Regulated Liability Network (RLN) which explored the potential for tokenized deposits and programmability among eleven financial institutions. The overall conclusion was the RLN provides a viable innovation platform, and the next step is to engage with regulators. Five use cases were trialed, ranging from buying a home to the settlement of a tokenized bond, finding significant benefits and exploring various revenue models. It found 40 specific business benefits grouped into five higher level ones; (i) greater settlement efficiency, (ii) the ability to address authorized push payment fraud, (iii) simplifying customer journeys, (iv) reducing the cost of failed payments and (v) greater payment efficiencies. https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/policy-and-guidance/reports-and-publications/rln-reports-2024

The International Working Group on Data Protection in Technology (the "Berlin Group"), chaired by the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI), published a working paper on central bank digital currency (CBDC) privacy-related risk factors. For example, the paper points out that the ECB must take a privacy and data protection by design and by default approach. In addition, it argues that a distributed ledger technology (DLT) architecture does not necessary entail a more privacy friendly solution, because data is immediately visible to all nodes in the network and immutability means that data can never be deleted or rectified (a right that is guaranteed in Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Also, some programmable features imply privacy and civil rights risks that may outweigh the potential benefits, due to legal and ethical concerns (for example automated decision-making without possibility of appeal and/or risk of censorship).

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) published an update on the second phase of the Digital Tenge (DT) project, including reporting on testing of five government use case scenarios involving programmable payments. They involved controlling and monitoring the use of funds paid out or lent by the government to support various programs. Two involved payments out of the National Fund for infrastructure projects, and another, investment subsidies for the purchase of agricultural machinery and equipment. Another involved a government microlending program to support farmer livestock purchases, and the fifth one the collection of value-added taxes (VAT). No specific potential full launch dates were given, but 2025 will be the last year in terms of the DT's phased implementation.

Facebook has built a dedicated computer programming language called "Move" to provide more flexibility to the Libra blockchain. By building programmability into the blockchain, it can take advantage of new functionality or new techniques, without an entire network upgrade.

China's cabinet, the State Council, has given the go-head for the next stage of the central bank's digital currency programme, according to Wang Xin, director of the central bank's research bureau.

"SWIFT will enable instant and frictionless payments from account-to-account anywhere in the world, with an end-to-end solution that combines international and domestic capabilities. This ambitious platform expansion means SWIFT will support financial institutions to strengthen their positions in B2B payments and capture new volume in SME and consumer segments."

The MIT Digital Currency Initiative "Redesigning Digital Money" paper considers three important features from crypto-asset design - decentralization, programmability and privacy - and assesses their applicability to a central bank digital currency. bility to a CBDC.

The State Bank of Vietnam is is urgently working with relevant ministries to finalise the pilot programme of utilising telephone subscription accounts to make small payments, or mobile money.

The U.S. government needs a stimulus payment system that ensures the policy objectives are met. It could be based on programmable eMoney ("digital dollars") or eVouchers that are time-stamped, purpose-limited, and even location-limited to prevent users from hoarding them. Loans to small businesses could be tied to payroll or capital expenditure. Such eMoney or eVouchers could be sent or received directly to users' eWallet accounts and settled over an automated clearing house.

According to Binance, Libra's envisioned global payment system could do to the payment industry what SpaceX did to the space industry: shake the foundations of a well-established sector with high entry barriers. The mere advantage of issuing widely-available programmable money would already initiate manifold efficiency gains.

The European Blockchain Observatory and Forum (EUBOF) published a report identifying and evaluating eight alternative design architectures for the digital euro against the core principles and requirements set by the ECB. It considers how the digital euro will differ based on whether it will account-based or token-based, or whether it's implemented atop existing eurozone-wide payment rails or atop novel technological architectures, such as blockchain. The paper also explores whether a digital euro should be exclusively coordinated by the central bank or distributed and managed in collaboration with Europe's commercial banks and other financial institutions. It addresses interoperability and programmability features, regulatory aspects and end-user experience, along with potential financial stability implications.

"In the specific case of a currency engineered for customizable demurrage, pernicious applications come to mind immediately. The extent to which those are realizable, however, pivots upon a degree of theorizing as to how "targetable" the programmed change of purchasing power will be. (Because such a system will ultimately require the elimination of cash to be fully effective, the warnings associated with a closely-related unconventional monetary policy, negative interest rates, apply here as well.)"

The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) of the European Parliament has published a draft report on on the proposal for a regulation on a pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). The proposed regulation is intended to provide a mechanism for allowing market infrastructures to experiment with certain restricted uses of DLT. The report indicates overall support for the proposed regulation, but presents a number of amendments aimed at ensuring the final proposal delivers the stated objectives of the pilot programme.

TransferWise is the first firm to pilot the Visa Cloud Connect platform, which provides a secure cloud-based connection to VisaNet, including a unified certification and testing framework, Visa-hosted security services such as transaction encryption and PIN key management, and simplified settlement in local markets. This will enable TransferWise to expand its debit card program that accompanies its multi-currency account.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Danmarks Nationalbank, Central Bank of Iceland, Norges Bank and Sveriges Riksbank today launched the BIS Innovation Hub Nordic Centre in Stockholm. The BIS Innovation Hub's work programme is currently focused on six areas: suptech and regtech; next generation financial market infrastructures; central bank digital currencies; open finance; cyber security; and green finance. Work related to these themes is spread among the various Hub Centres, although specific projects have not yet been finalised for the Nordic Centre.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is continuing to closely monitor the case for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and is engaging with some other central banks on possible use cases, including for cross-border payments. So far, the central bank does not consider that a policy case has yet emerged for issuing a CBDC. The RBA has also been conducting research on wholesale CBDC at its in-house Innovation Lab, and is close to finalising a project with a number of external parties to explore the implications of delivery-versus-payment settlement on a distributed ledger technology platform as well as other programmability features of tokenised CBDC and financial assets. https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=c5918da2-21b6-4974-8ef8-29794479f488&subId=709664

Using Tradeshift's platform and smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, Icelandic retailer Nordic Store purchased goods from IKEA Iceland and settled an e-invoice with Monerium's programmable digital cash.

Mastercard is carrying out the first pilot of a digital identity programme designed to let people prove who they are immediately, safely and securely in both the digital and the physical world.