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The Eurosystem defined a harmonized policy to allow non-bank payment service providers (PSPs) to access central bank-operated payment systems, including TARGET. Non-bank PSPs include payment institutions (PIs) and electronic money institutions (EMIs). The broader access criteria for TARGET are aimed at enhancing the efficiency of the European retail payments market, fostering competition and innovation in the European payments landscape, and supporting the uptake of instant payments in the European Union. Starting in April 2025, non-bank PSPs meeting certain requirements will be able to access TARGET, including T2 (for settling payments) and TIPS (for settling instant payments). The Payment Services Directive was also amended to introduce the option for non-bank PSPs to safeguard users' funds in an account held with a central bank, subject to the discretion of that central bank.

WorldPay published the 2024 edition of its Global Payment Report. It reports that the ubiquitous acceptance of digital wallets is enabling greater consumer choice and control in this era of payments innovation. According to the findings, digital wallets accounted for $13.9 trillion in global transaction value in 2023, representing half of all online and 30% of consumer spend at point-of-sale (POS). In markets where credit and debit cards already had strong consumer attachment, the data suggests consumers remain loyal to these cards, choosing to connect them to their digital wallets. Although cash usage continues to decline, cash accounted for 16% of global transaction value, including double-digit share in 30 of 40 markets in this report.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) joined Project Nexus, a multilateral international initiative to enable instant cross-border retail payments by interlinking domestic fast payment systems (FPSs). Nexus, conceptualized by the BIS Innovation Hub aims to connect the FPSs of four ASEAN countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand); and now India. Indonesia, which has been involved from the early stages, continues to be involved as a special observer. The platform is expected to go live by 2026. Once functional, Nexus will play an important role in making retail cross-border payments efficient, faster, and more cost effective.

Central bank digital currencies could bring profound changes to the financial system, potentially crowding out commercial banks. They could also change the way monetary policy operates. The implications for monetary and financial stability need careful consideration.

The Australian Securities Exchange has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Digital Asset and VMware to boost the development of its blockchain-based equities clearing and settlement system.

Thailand's Siam Commercial Bank will be opening up its RippleNet-powered consumer cross-border payments app to companies.

TechSprints are typically 2 day events that bring together participants from across and outside of financial services to develop technology based ideas or proof of concepts to address specific industry challenges. These events help us to shine a light on issues and expand the discussion and awareness of potential solutions.

With a decrease in the use of cash, the objectives pursued by the Central Banks with an electronic and universally accessible form of money are to anticipate the disappearance of cash, create an efficient and cheap means of payment, and strengthen regulatory controls. It is not a matter of "if" but a matter of "when". Central Banks must define the objectives first, then get the design parameters right while carefully assessing the second order effects; and conduct thorough pilots before launching a central bank digital currency.

The Swiss Centre will examine the integration of digital central bank money into a DLT infrastructure. This new form of digital central bank money would be aimed at facilitating the settlement of tokenised assets between financial institutions. The project will be carried out as part of a collaboration between the SNB and the SIX Group in the form of a proof of concept.

SIX presents seven possible futures for money, in both its physical and digital form. The scenarios focus on Switzerland but continuing discussions will also take us beyond its borders. What is considered money, what form it takes, and how it is used, all look set to change dramatically in the near future.

The potential role of a DLT-based wholesale CBDC is in worth considering if not desirable according to the Banque de France's Denis Beau, and the central bank is quite open for experiments in that direction, together with the ECB and other central banks of the Eurosystem.

"In Japan, the amount of cash outstanding is still increasing, and it does not seem that there is a demand for CBDC from the public at present. Nevertheless, the Bank of Japan has been conducting technical and legal research on this matter in order to stand ready when the need for CBDC may arise in the future."

The Banco Central del Uruguay committed to continuing its analysis and study of central bank digital currency issuance (CBDC) in its 2020-2022 national payment systems roadmap.

A research arm of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority published a detailed report, based on an industry-wide survey, on overall Fintech adoption and the latest technological advancements in the banking sector. Banks see Fintech development more as an opportunity than a threat to their business operations, with risk management services having the greatest potential. Meanwhile, 86% of banks have adopted or plan to adopt Fintech solutions across all types of financial services. Preliminary results also show that increased cost efficiency and improved profitability are associated with more extensive Fintech adoption by banks.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced the three winners of the G20 TechSprint challenge. The hackathon-style competition was launched in April 2020 to highlight the potential for technology to resolve regulatory compliance (regtech) and supervisory (suptech) challenges. The winners, chosen by an independent panel of experts, addressed one or more of its three problem topics. FNA won the dynamic information-sharing category for their solution FNA Platform for Dynamic Information Sharing and Real-Time Analytics, Tookitaki won in the monitoring and surveillance category for their solution Crypto-currency AML Typology Repository Management and ISDA-REGnosys won the regulatory reporting challenge for their solution Consistent Regulatory Reporting via the Common Domain Model.

"The past year has been a year of exciting initiatives for Ghana's digital infrastructure. The Government has adopted digitization as a key policy objective and has recently introduced a number of programs designed to develop a more digitally accessible public sector and encourage transparency and efficiency, in order to drive growth in all aspects of the country's economy."

A detailed report and solution for India by Policy 4.0. to tackle the spectrum of regulatory risks the government faces with cryptocurrency. The report outlines a comprehensive policy risk framework for India with cryptocurrency and recommends India build its own "India wallet" to tackle KYC, the inflow and outflow of cryptocurrency and monetary concerns.

This Deloitte paper advocates for combining the best attributes of crypto-asset technology with the features of an established fiat currency under the sponsorship of a central bank? However, to me it sounds like they're describing a central bank-issued fiat-pegged stablecoin running on a private permissioned distributed ledger technology-based network. Am I missing something, because this just sounds like a fairly generic central bank digital currency?

"Visa's CBDC Payments Module is a proof-of-concept (POC) that envisions bringing web3 assets into a web2 user experience by providing an on-ramp for individuals, business owners, governments, and users of all kinds. The POC is designed to be a bridge connecting a CBDC system with existing forms of payment products and outlets. In linking CBDC with card payments-whether in the form of prepaid or debit cards-CBDC becomes a fast and nearly ubiquitous alternative payment choice users can easily adopt alongside existing forms of money, all while benefiting from economies of scale derived from today's mature payment networks. The illustration below captures the flow of a payment transaction that integrates Visa's scale and messaging protocols with a participating central bank's ledger technology. Importantly, all this is designed to happen at the backend without major disruption for users, businesses, and financial intermediaries."

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Bank Indonesia announced the 21 shortlisted finalists for the G20 TechSprint CBDC challenge. The shortlisted teams now have until the end of August to complete their prototypes, which will then be judged by an independent expert panel convened by Bank Indonesia. Winners for each of the three categories will be announced in October ahead of the G20 Summit. Among the shortlisted were BitMint, R3, Ripple, S.e.A. (Stellar, eCurrency and ANZ), Bitt-IDEMIA, Crunchfish, and Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) Filia.