“The Covid-19 pandemic has altered retail payment behaviour around the world. Cash withdrawals and cash use declined, even though microbiological research indicates that physical banknotes and coins are not any more likely to transfer infections than other regularly touched surfaces. A transition to digital payments, such as contactless card payments and digital payment apps, occurred rapidly. What implications do these changes have for the future of cash and digital payments, and how have they varied across economies?”

“The payment system underpinning cross-border financial flows has not kept pace with rapid growth in global economic integration. The global network of correspondent banks that facilitates international payments is hindered by high costs, low speed and transparency, and operational complexities. Banks are also paring back their correspondent networks and services, leaving many participants (notably emerging market and developing economies) without sufficient or affordable access to the global financial system. Multiple CBDC (multi-CBDC) arrangements that directly connect jurisdictional digital currencies in a single common technical infrastructure offer significant potential to improve the current system and allow cross-border payments to be immediate, cheap and universally accessible with secure settlement…(full report available on site).”

“The Swedish, Norwegian and Israeli central banks have launched a project with the Bank for International Settlements to test international retail and remittance payments with central bank digital currencies, Sweden’s Riksbank said on Wednesday.”

“The Bank for International Settlements – BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank of Thailand, People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of The UAE announce the successful completion of the first CBDC pilot involving four jurisdictions and real-value transactions. Previously known as Project Inthanon-LionRock, the project was renamed as “m-CBDC Bridge” to explore the capabilities of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in facilitating real-time cross-border foreign exchange payment-versus-payment transactions in a multi-jurisdictional context and on a 24/7 basis. The m-CBDC Bridge project also explored business use cases in a cross-border context using both domestic and foreign currencies.”

“With most of the world’s payment systems adopting ISO 20022 by 2025, the coming years will be crucial for converging on a harmonised use of the messaging standard to fully leverage its potential to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more transparent. This article provides an update on a workstream of the G20 cross-border payments programme focused on the harmonisation of ISO 20022 for enhancing cross-border payments. The work is being driven by the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI). The article includes highlights from a stocktake of global ISO 20022 adoption by payment system operators.”

“The Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) publish their guidance on the application of the Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMI) to systemically important stablecoin arrangements (SAs), including the entities integral to such arrangements. The guidance highlights that the transfer function of an SA is comparable to the transfer function performed by other types of financial market infrastructure (FMI). As a result, an SA that performs this transfer function is considered an FMI for the purpose of applying the PFMI and, if determined by relevant authorities to be systemically important, the SA as a whole would be expected to observe all relevant principles in the PFMI.”