Fintech Daily Digest

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is reportedly progressing towards issuing its own wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), codenamed Project Agila, sooner than anticipated, with the proof-of-concept (POC) phase expected to conclude by the end of 2024. Deputy Governor Mamerto E. Tangonan confirmed that the CBDC could likely be launched in the earlier part of BSP Governor Eli M. Remolona Jr.'s six-year term, which runs from 2023 until 2029. Three uses cases mentioned; interbank settlement on weekends and holidays, securities settlement and cross border payments. With regards to the latter, the BSP is an observer of Project mBridge involving the BIS Innovation Hub and the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. HyperLedger Fabric's distributed ledger technology (DLT) is being used for BSP's sandbox experiments.

Thailand's finance ministry is going ahead with a plan to pay a social benefit in digital currency. Up to 45 million Thais will be eligible to receive 10,000 baht (about $280) in digital money on August 1, 2024, about two-thirds of the average monthly income in the country. There are numerous restrictions on usage, including know your customer (KYC) verification that will exclude prisoners and people and businesses with records of economic abuse. There are also restrictions on the items that can be purchased with the digital currency.

Jordan's Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship (MODEE) launched a national blockchain technology network, MODEE DLT, to enhance trust and transparency in government services. MODEE DLT has been integrated with the "Sanad" system to provide a decentralized and verifiable digital record of all Sanad transactions. Sanad is a government portal through which residents can access their government digital documents and personal records, apply for government services, digitally sign documents, and make bill payments.

The Bank of Canada (BOC) published a paper on how a central bank digital currency (CBDC) changes monetary policy transmission in a general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities, liquidity frictions, and a banking sector where commercial banks face a leverage constraint. It finds that the effects of a shock to the Taylor rule that governs interest on central bank reserves, is magnified with the introduction of a fixed-interest-rate CBDC. More generally, whether CBDC magnifies or abates the response of the economy depends on the type of shock (e.g., interest rate or quantity of reserves shock). The paper also finds that the response of the economy depends on the monetary policy framework-whether the central bank implements monetary policy through reserves or through CBDC-as well as central bank balance sheet rules that govern the quantity of CBDC and reserves.

IFI Global's "Global Developments in Central Bank Digital Currency" offers a holistic view of CBDC initiatives, unraveling the intricate web of motivations, challenges, and implications. From Africa to Asia, from Europe to Oceania, the book delves into country-specific developments, shedding light on the role of politics, culture, and informal institutions in shaping CBDC adoption.

The Deutsche Bundesbank (BuBa) published an analysis of how people pay in Germany, based on approximately 5,700 randomly selected members of the public aged 18 and over between September and November 2023. Of payment volumes, debit cards accounted for 32%, cash for 26%, transfers and direct debits 20%, credit cards 10%, and mobile payments 6%. In general, 44% of respondents prefer to pay with electronic payment methods, but 24% still prefer cash, and 94% of merchants accept cash at point of sale. The perceived benefits of cash include privacy preservation (63%), immediate and reliable settlement of payments (47%), and easy expense overview (41%).

The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) published its guidelines for the oversight of distributed ledger technology applications or systems provision and usage by QCB-regulated entities to ensure that their usage is safe, secure and efficient.

The German Banking Industry Committee (GBIC) published the results of a proof of concept (POC) for its distributed ledger technology (DLT) based commercial bank money token (CBMT) project. CBMT is focused on serving large corporates, especially industrial companies, allowing them to hold tokens from multiple banks and to make P2P (B2B) transactions 24/7/365. Results confirmed that the CBMT is viable and offers considerable potential, enabling the realization of a variety of use cases across corporate functions. Results also showed that the CBMT works across a variety of DLT platforms, has the potential to scale and should present no barrier to integration into existing systems via application programming interfaces (APIs). https://die-dk.de/media/files/240716_DKBDI_position_CBMT_final.pdf

The European Central Bank (ECB) published two documents discussed at the June 28, 2024 meeting of the European Retail Payments Board (ERPB) technical session of the digital euro. One was a summary of inputs on the methodology for calibrating holding limits, and the other was on the strategies for conducting euro user research and engaging with market participants (payment service providers and merchants). https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/timeline/profuse/shared/pdf/ecb.deprep240723_item4_feedback_holding_limit_factors.en.pdf https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/timeline/profuse/shared/pdf/ecb.deprep240723_item2_user_research_experimentation.en.pdf

The European Central Bank (ECB) published a paper that explores the relationship between banks, and stablecoins and their issuers, focusing on the mechanical effects on banks' capital and liquidity ratios when issuing stablecoins or collecting deposits from stablecoin issuers. The analysis reveals that converting retail deposits into stablecoin issuers' deposits weakens a bank's liquidity coverage ratio (LCR), turning a retail deposit into a wholesale deposit, even when these funds are reinvested in high-quality liquid assets (HQLA). If a credit institution issues its own stablecoins, the impact on its LCR depends on whether it can identify the stablecoin holders; unknown holders weaken the LCR which could incentivize banks to issue stablecoins where they can continually identify the holders to benefit from more favorable liquidity treatment. The study also finds that when retail customers of bank A buy a stablecoin issued by a non-bank that keeps reserves at bank B, both banks could see an unexpected decline in their liquidity ratios, as bank A loses stable retail deposits and bank B gains volatile wholesale deposits.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a paper on the economics of crypto exchange tokens, which are blockchain-based assets issued by crypto exchanges that may promise holders discounts on transaction fees and access to certain platform services. They are an important funding source for centralized crypto exchanges, and they have been at the core of some of the biggest disruptions in the crypto industry. The paper develops a tractable model for the exchange rates of crypto exchange tokens that incorporates user demand, investment demand, and commonly observed pledges by exchanges to buy back tokens. It derives closed-formed solutions for the valuation of exchange tokens and the time required to fulfill the pledge. Buyback pledges increase the amount of funding raised by selling tokens. However, the additional amount raised is always less than the discounted cost of the buyback pledge. Future price manipulation by investors can further increase the cost of the buyback pledge.

Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) is looking to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) based apps into its Drex central bank digital currency (CBDC). Specifically, it plans to incorporate instant payment methods like Pix and leverage AI technologies similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Central bank President Roberto Campos Neto envisions a future where multiple banking apps are replaced by a single, comprehensive super app that aggregates financial data and uses AI to offer personalized financial services.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published guidance on the issuance of stablecoins. It provides information on aspects of financial market law that arise in relation to stablecoin projects and the impact of such projects on the supervised institutions. The guidance also draws attention to the increased risks in the areas of money laundering, terrorist financing and the circumvention of sanctions. In particular, the identity of all persons holding the stablecoins must be adequately verified by the issuing institution or by appropriately supervised financial intermediaries. In other words anonymous transfers are prohibited.

U.S. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump announced that if elected, he would create a strategic bitcoin reserve in the United States. "It will be the policy of my administration to keep 100 percent of all bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires in the future … as a core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile," he said. Right now, the U.S. government owns more than 210,000 bitcoin that were seized via illegal operations. Trump also pledged to create a framework for ensuring the safe expansion of stablecoins, and doubled down on his vow to scrap any effort to issue central bank digital currency (CBDC). He also defended the right to crypto-asset self custody and promised to fire Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler.

The Bank of England (BOE) published a discussion paper on innovation in money and payments. While it covers payments across the board, it aims to gather feedback for planned wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) trials. These will include a synchronization (or "trigger") solution that settles transactions involving assets that are tokenized on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms using the real time gross settlement (RTGS) system. The BOE also wants to trial a digital securities transaction in which an end user makes a tokenized deposit payment. Finally, it will test interoperability with global initiatives like the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Project Agorá for cross-border payments. Comments are due by October 31, 2024. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/paper/2024/dp/the-boes-approach-to-innovation-in-money-and-payments

Banca d'Italia published a paper on the FROSTed Byzantine Fault Tolerance (FBFT) protocol, an approach to DLT proof of authority (PoA) validation meant to strengthen the security of the ledger, its tolerance to faults or attacks, and the confidentiality of validators. It combines the practical byzantine fault tolerance (PBFT) algorithm with the flexible round-optimized Schnorr threshold (FROST) signature scheme. The resulting system is an alternative platform for a distributed, resilient transactional system. Operated by a set of trusted actors, distributed at geographic scale, it holds potential for mission-critical applications, such as wholesale and retail CBDC, and asset tokenization schemes.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published its annual report on currency and Finance in which it reported that as of June 2024, 5 million users (versus 1.3 million a year earlier) and 0.4 million merchants (versus 0.3 million) were participating in e-Rupee CBDC retail pilot. https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/AnnualPublications.aspx?head=Report%20on%20Currency%20and%20Finance

Qatar Central Bank (QCB) launched a "Request to Pay" option through Fawran instant payment service that was launched in March 2024. Request to Pay allows customers to send a payment request from the payee to the payer. The payer will then receive the request, including the payee's name, the required amount to be transferred and the option to accept or reject the request. In case of acceptance, the required amount will be transferred instantly to the payee's account. The participating banks are Doha Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Commercial Bank, Masraf Al Rayan and Qatar International Islamic Bank. https://x.com/QCBQATAR/status/1818149749276450924

[March 7, 2024] Qatar Central Bank (QCB) launched its instant 24/7 payment service 'FAWRAN', in continuation of QCB's efforts to develop the infrastructure of payment systems and keep pace with the latest developments in the field of payment systems and electronic transfer of funds. FAWRAN also facilitates financial and commercial transactions between the bank accounts of individuals and companies. FAWRAN will enable the sender to verify the name of the beneficiary (addressee) before completing the transfer process, and ease of use through the banks' mobile phone applications, in addition to the use of alternative identifiers that are easier to identify the beneficiary such as (mobile phone number, alias) instead of the international account number (IBAN).

Russia's State Duma passed a bill that will allow businesses to use crypto-assets in international trade, as part of efforts to skirt Western sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, starting on September 1, 2024. The final step requires the approval of the Federation Council and the President's signature. Under the new law, the Bank of Russia will create an experimental infrastructure for cryptocurrency payments, details of which have yet to be announced. https://ria.ru/20240730/gosduma-1962953668.html?in=l