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The IMF published a blog post that makes the case for leveraging the technology behind crypto-assets to upgrade payment infrastructures and ensure interoperability, safety, and efficiency in digital finance. It points particularly to tokenization, encryption, and programmability, plus central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to clear and settle transactions. Payments could be made from one private money to another, through the CBDC ledger or platform. Money could be escrowed on the CBDC platform, then released when certain conditions are met, such as when a tokenized asset is received. And the CBDC platform could offer a basic programming language to ensure smart contracts are trusted and compatible with one another. More detail on these ideas were published in a recent IMF working paper ("A Multi-Currency Exchange and Contracting Platform"). https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2022/11/04/A-Multi-Currency-Exchange-and-Contracting-Platform-525445

The IMF published a blog post that makes the case for leveraging the technology behind crypto-assets to upgrade payment infrastructures and ensure interoperability, safety, and efficiency in digital finance. It points particularly to tokenization, encryption, and programmability, plus central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to clear and settle transactions. Payments could be made from one private money to another, through the CBDC ledger or platform. Money could be escrowed on the CBDC platform, then released when certain conditions are met, such as when a tokenized asset is received. And the CBDC platform could offer a basic programming language to ensure smart contracts are trusted and compatible with one another.

The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planning to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for domestic and cross-border payments in order to help drive innovation for domestic payments, and address the problems and inefficiency of cross-border payments and respectively. The issuance of a digital dirham is one of nine initiatives of the central bank's Financial Infrastructure Transformation Program. https://www.centralbank.ae/media/mdupathy/cbuae-launches-a-financial-infrastructure-transformation-programme-to-accelerate-the-digital-transformation-of-the-financial-services-sector-en.pdf

The Bank of England (BoE) published its roadmap for the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service beyond 2024 that was informed by public responses to the consultation paper published in April 2022. The objective of modernizing the RTGS service is to offer a more accessible, functional and resilient platform for digital settlement in central bank money. The roadmap pushes back on the idea of putting wholesale payments on distributed ledger technology (DLT) (e.g., via "wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC)") rails. It points out that the RTGS Renewal Programme will realize a number of benefits commonly associated with such platforms more quickly than it would be possible to launch an entirely new wholesale settlement platform and achieve scale in its usage.

The compatibility of a CBDC with other ERC-20 cryptocurrencies will open it to the world of programmable money. Already one country has patents for offline CBDC transactions, i.e., China, any other country with a patent for transacting its CBDC offline will give a significant financial strategic advantage to this country. https://patents.google.com/patent/FR3077151A1

The Bank of England published the minutes of the January 24 CBDC Technology Forum meeting. The Forum operates alongside the CBDC Taskforce which coordinates the exploration of a potential UK CBDC. It consists of senior stakeholders from industry, civil society and academia to gather strategic input on CBDC functional requirements. This meeting discussed different ledger data structures across a range of design areas to understand advantages and disadvantages of each, and the trade-offs and risks associated with introducing programmability.

Wyoming-based Avanti Financial Group has changed its name to Custodia Bank, and announced plans to launch in Q2 with U.S. dollar deposit accounts for business customers, initially providing ACH and Fedwire services. Its post-launch roadmap includes digital asset custody, Avit™ (a payment instrument akin to a digital cashier's check) and prime services, facilitated by customer-facing APIs to enable the programmability of payments by customers.

"Being a finalist in this competition, this manuscript presents a design proposal for a Central Bank Digital Loonie (CBDL) based on careful academic research of the possible technological, legal, and economic components of such an unprecedented and historic expedition. We propose a two-phased approach. In the first phase, the BoC introduces a centralized platform as a public-good infrastructure that establishes digital cash and ensures global/domestic interoperability. In this phase, e-KYC-based authentication leverages existing private/public sector solutions but also safeguards users' privacy/data against third-party commercial interests while complying with AML/CFT. In the second phase, the BoC will expand the platform to an enterprise-level permissioned blockchain. This shared resource will transform CBDLs into "programmable e-money" within a "social operating system" that will enable Canadians to operate, innovate, compete, and thrive in this new global digital economy."

Chris Brummer draws from his recent white paper on disclosure and decentralized finance (DeFi), to introduce some new concepts to the DeFi lexicon for building out disclosure delivery systems native to the crypto ecosystem. He imagines disclosure systems that are programmable, capable of evolving with technology - and which could provide the infrastructure for further tools for empowering participants in the Metaverse and beyond. If properly developed, the ideas could draw on DeFi's strengths and provide more functionality and security than regulators' legacy technology stack. Moreover, they could afford a new generation of developers and engineers a unique opportunity to reorient disclosure towards its original purpose: to be read.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) published its work program for 2022. Priority areas of work and new initiatives, including key deliverables include continuing its work on enhancing cross-border payments, and continuing work on the financial stability and regulatory and supervisory implications of technological innovation, with a particular focus on various forms of crypto-assets, including decentralised finance (DeFi).

"Like bank deposits that make up over 90% of the money in use today, tokenized deposits can support a variety of use cases including domestic and cross-border payments, trading and settlement, and provision of cash collateral. In a token form, commercial bank money becomes a programmable instrument that operates 24/7 and can be transferred instantly, without relying on intermediaries. These technical features allow "deposit tokens" to express sophisticated payment operations and to act as collateral that travels within minutes."

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a paper that compares the key characteristics of stablecoins ("private tokenized monies that circulate as bearer instruments") and tokenized commercial bank deposits. It claims that stablecoins violate the "singleness of money" principle because their relative exchange values can and do depart from parity. The problem could be solved by the introduction of clearing houses to support par exchange for the stablecoins issued by its members. However, according to the paper, this is a step backwards because the problem has already been solved by the existing two-tier monetary system. Also, tokenized deposit functionality can be expanded to allow for programmable ledgers, contingent execution and composability of transactions.

Speaking at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Summit, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said offline accessibility, which is in the works, will make the digital rupee an attractive choice for retail users. Governor Das said that the digital rupee should have the same benefits as cash - anonymity and finality of settlement. While there is currently a preference for the Universal Payments Interface (UPI) among retail users, Governor Das was hopeful that offline and programmable CBDC will change this going forward.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) together with seven central banks will explore how tokenization of wholesale central bank money and commercial bank deposits on programmable platforms can improve the monetary system. Project Agorá's primary area of exploration will be to increase the speed and integrity of international payments, while lowering costs by building on the BIS's proposed unified ledger concept. The BIS will issue a call for expressions of interest to private financial institutions, with the Institute of International Finance (IIF) acting as the intermediary and convener, to join the project.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published its vision for a "Finternet" of multiple financial ecosystems interconnected with each other, much like the internet. The envisioned system leverages tokenization and unified ledgers, underpinned by a robust economic and regulatory framework, to dramatically expand the range and quality of financial services. The paper provides a blueprint for how key technical characteristics like interoperability, verifiability, programmability, immutability, finality, evolvability, modularity, scalability, security and privacy can be incorporated, and how varied governance norms can be embedded.

The most recent draft of the digital euro legislation being discussed by the European parliamentary Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs includes support for permissionless blockchains. "Conditional payments in Digital Euros may also be carried out on permissionless distributed ledgers where until now only privately issued assets like crypto-assets or stable coins are available as a means of payment. With the approval and under conditions set by the European Central Bank (ECB), the Digital Euro would be made available as a token to be referenced on these chains." The ECB and European Council previously stated they don't want programmable money at the base layer, so the legislation now specifies conditional payments will happen in the "layer above". https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/ECON-PR-758954_EN.pdf

The Bank of England (BOE) and HM Treasury (HMT) published a summary of the responses to their February 2023 digital pound consultation paper. The Bank and HMT received over 50,000 responses, with many respondents raising concerns about access to cash, users' privacy, and control of their money. In the summary paper, the BOE and HMT said that the they would not have access to personal data. Private-sector payment interface providers (PIPs) would anonymize personal data before transactions are processed and settled by the BOE. Also the BOE and HMT would not pursue government or central bank-initiated programmable functions. However, PIPs could program digital pound payments but only with user consent, and be subject to robust regulatory requirements in this regard .Although commercial bank respondents called for individual holding limits of £3,000 to £5,000, the BOE and HMT are sticking with a £10,000 to £20,000 range for now.

The Bank of Ghana (BOG) has reportedly completed the second phase of Project Digital Economy Semi-Fungible Token (DESFT), a joint project with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The first phase saw the development of the blockchain-based Universal Trusted Credentials (UTC) system that enables micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to efficiently verify authenticity of key information, such as basic credentials, licenses, certificates, and trade records across borders. In the second phase, a cross-border payment was made using UTCs, the eCedi CBDC and a Singapore dollar stablecoin, using the Purpose-Bound Money (PBM) protocol.

Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will ease restrictions on using digital assets for payments, and digital asset businesses under SEC supervision will be able to participate in the Bank of Thailand's Programmable Payment Sandbox. The updated regulations broaden the scope of services digital asset businesses can provide without being considered a means of payment and include new types of operators like digital asset custodial wallet providers. https://www.sec.or.th/TH/Pages/News_Detail.aspx?SECID=11085

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is looking is looking for a service partner to implement a digital currency platform with both online and offline capabilities. This platform will support financial inclusion in remote areas with limited internet access and offer an alternative payment method for various users. The project will focus on deploying a modular, "token-based" architecture with programmable infrastructure to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions, strengthen financial resilience, and promote innovation across sectors. The outcome of this project will be an ADB-owned digital asset that can be utilized across its member countries.