The governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Reza Baqir, has indicated that the institution is carefully studying the possibilities opened by central bank digital currencies. In an interview with CNN reporter Julia Chatterley on Thursday, Baqir noted that countries, such as China, are “already showing the way” when it comes to CBDC issuance, further outlining the motivations behind the central bank’s interest in CBDCs: “The benefit for us is twofold: Not only does [potential CBDC issuance] give another boost to our efforts for financial inclusion but, second, if the central bank issues a digital currency, it allows us to …

A financial think tank has suggested that Britain should adopt a digital pound in an effort to strengthen London’s status as a global trade center in the wake of Brexit. Previously the gravitational center-point of Europe’s financial sector, London saw much of its influence lost at the end of 2020 when Britain’s exit from the European Union was finalized. The United Kingdom’s Finance Ministry will now take proposals on how to make the City of London more attractive to global traders and pull activity back from Amsterdam, which emerged as the new EU trading hub post-Brexit. Euro-skeptic politicians and London …

South China’s Hainan Province, which administers the prefectural Sansha City on a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea, will run a two-week campaign later this month to promote the use of the digital yuan among island residents. The city, established in 2012, is on the front line of disputes over territorial claims in the South China Sea and is unusual in being both the People Republic of China’s smallest city by population and its largest by geographic reach — formally encompassing over 280 islands and their surrounding waters, reaching almost 800,000 square miles of sea and land area. Between …

PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, has warned that the Chinese central government may be supporting Bitcoin as a means to undermine the foreign and monetary policy of the United States. But, he added, it has tried to use the Euro the same way. Speaking at a virtual event hosted by conservative non-profit, the Richard Nixon Foundation, Thiel was commenting on whether China’s central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC, could threaten the U.S. dollar’s status as a global reserve currency. While Thiel, who is known to be pro-Bitcoin, suggested an “internal stablecoin in China” will amount to little more …

After completing the first phase of its digital currency pilot project, Sveriges Riksbank has found some critical issues that must be addressed before Stockholmers can buy coffee and kanelbullar with e-krona. In a recent study, Sweden’s central bank presented the first results of its central bank digital currency pilot on a network based on R3’s Corda blockchain. The Riksbank simulated core aspects of a potential CBDC system, including liquidity supply via the Riksbank’s settlement system, RIX, and network members serving as e-kronor distributors. The central bank also simulated participants, end-users and payment instruments like mobile apps. The Riksbank said that …

The Japanese central bank has launched a proof of concept for its central bank digital currency, according to an official announcement on Monday. Following initial preparations to test the technical feasibility of core CBDC functions and features in early 2021, the Bank of Japan is beginning CBDC testing in its first phase today. During this phase, the bank plans to develop a test environment for the CBDC system and conduct experiments on basic functions related to payment, issuance, distribution and redemption of a CBDC. According to the announcement, this phase is expected to have been completed by March 2022. The …

The Bank of Thailand has set its agenda for a retail central bank digital currency, with preliminary testing protocols scheduled to begin in Q2 2022. Thailand’s central bank made this known in a press release issued on Friday calling for public comments on the proposed CBDC roadmap. As part of its plans, the central bank published a preliminary report detailing its CBDC thesis. Explaining its motivation for creating a CBDC, the Bank of Thailand argued that the success of private stablecoins poses risks to “monetary sovereignty and financial stability.” Indeed, back in March, Thailand’s apex bank deemed Thai Baht Digital …

The cryptocurrency space may be helping to spawn its own competitors after a representative of the People’s Bank of China said Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent surge had caused renewed interest in the nation’s digital yuan project. The digital yuan is China’s central bank digital currency, and like all CBDCs its foundational principles are completely antithetical to those of the cryptocurrency space. Core crypto concepts of decentralization and autonomy are dispensed with in favor of centralization and oversight, in an effort by government authorities to more easily control the flow of money. The digital yuan is also expected to be central to …

Distributed storage network project Filecoin is the talk of the town as FIL was the most highly traded token on Huobi, OKEx and Gate on Thursday. These three exchanges have a predominantly Chinese user base and represent a large part of the Tier One trading volume for major pairs. On Thursday afternoon, Huobi trading volumes of FIL were more than three times that of BTC as the price reached a 7-day increase of 170%. Filecoin has had strong success in capturing the attention of Chinese investors, including large investment groups such as Fenbushi Capital, SNZ Capital and Neo’s EcoFund. These …

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the main financial institution of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, has launched DCash. The ECCB announced the launch of its CBDC for the region via a media event held on Wednesday. DCash is the digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar — the official currency of the eight countries in the union. However, as announced during the launch, DCash is only available in four of the currency union’s member states: Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Lucia. Wednesday’s launch marked a culmination of the project over two years in development with …

China has completed its first cross-border pilots of the digital yuan with Hong Kong. Wang Xin, director of the People’s Bank of China research bureau, said that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the PBoC have conducted technical tests on the cross-border use of China’s central bank digital currency. The official announced the news at a Thursday press conference hosted by the State Council Information Office of China, local news agency Sina Finance reports. The news comes shortly after Mu Changchun, head of the PBoC's digital currency research institute, proposed a set of global CBDC rules last week. Speaking at …

It could be a while before European Union gets a central bank digital currency, if it gets one at all. In a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg Television, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde laid out the complex decision-making process with which the bank will determine the future of a digital euro. The ECB will soon release its analysis of eight thousand responses received from its digital euro consultation process. “That will be communicated to the European Parliament which is one of the key players as well as the Commission and the Council with which we operate,” she stated. Based on …