The Treasury Department of the United Kingdom has revealed it is drafting proposals to regulate private stablecoins while also researching central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, as an alternative to cash. In an announcement published on Nov. 9, U.K. Treasury Chancellor Rishi Sunak noted the forthcoming regulatory proposals alongside other goals for the country’s financial services industry — including a review of the U.K.’s listings regime and support for green finance. “New technologies such as stablecoins — privately-issued digital currencies — could transform the way people store and exchange their money, making payments cheaper and faster.” The news comes amid …

The United States Federal Reserve has broadened its research on central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, in a new review that was posted to its website Monday. In a report titled "Central Bank Digital Currency: A Literature Review," Fed economists Francesca Carapella and Jean Flemming compile research exploring the potential impact of a digital dollar on commercial banking and monetary policy. The review provides a theoretical underpinning for understanding how CBDCs could influence consumer adoption and financial stability. The authors write: “From a theoretical standpoint, the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) raises long-standing questions relating to the …

Nouriel Roubini, an award-winning economist and known skeptic of Bitcoin (BTC), is confident that central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, are the future of money. According to Roubini, global CBDCs like the digital yuan are capable of replacing major financial services and cryptocurrencies in the near future. “They're gonna be crowding out digital payment systems, or in the private sector, starting with cryptocurrencies that are not really currencies,” the economist said in a Nov. 7 interview with Yahoo Finance. Roubini predicted that a CBDC-powered “revolution” is coming in as soon as in three years: “So not only you don't need …

Speaking at an event on Thursday, Ida Wolden Bache, deputy governor at Norway's central bank, described a decline in cash payments while elaborating on Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDCs. "Only 4% of payments are now made using cash," Bache said in her speech during Finance Norway's Payments conference. "This share is approximately the same as in spring, and considerably lower than before the pandemic," she added. "To our knowledge, the share of cash payments is lower in Norway than in any other country." Norway uses the kroner, the currency issued by Norges Bank, the country's central bank. After COVID-19 …

The COVID-19 pandemic has served both as an x-ray onto existing vulnerabilities in the global financial system, and as an accelerator for destabilizing tendencies, including higher sovereign and consumer debt in emerging markets. At an online meeting of the Central Bank Governors' Club, hosted this week by Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina, representatives were unanimous in their expectations of the far-reaching consequences of the current crisis. At the meeting, the 26 central bank representatives that convened from Central Asia, the Black Sea region, the Balkan countries and beyond, also noted the pandemic-induced expansion of e-commerce, as well as digital …

Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes has said that Brazil will issue its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC. Guedes made the statement on Thursday during a ceremony celebrating the 100 millionth digital savings account opened at Caixa Economica Federal: "Now that the central bank is autonomous again, it’s also amazing in the digital dimension: Pix, OpenBank, fintechs and digital currency. Brazil will have its own digital currency. Brazil is ahead of many countries." This is the first time that the minister has spoken directly on the subject, although he has not provided any further details on the CBDC project …

David Roche, president and global strategist at Independent Strategy, believes that China’s digital yuan has “a long way” before it will become able to challenge the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, CNDC reports Nov. 2. According to Roche, China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, could hypothetically beat the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, but it would take a “very, very long time.” The strategist reportedly emphasized that the euro accounts for a “miserable” 18%–20% of all global trade, while the Chinese yuan composes 2% of international trade settlements. He said: “Dethroning the dollar — which the euro …

Senior executives at global payments giant PayPal have revealed further details about its plans to aggressively push into the crypto sector next year during the firm’s Q3 2020 earnings call, including plans to support central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. “Clearly the world is rapidly moving from physical to digital,” said PayPal CEO, Dan Shulman, emphasizing the accelerated rate of change within the payments and financial services sectors. Citing discussions with central banks, regulators, and crypto industry leaders, Shulman asserted: “There is no question that digital currencies are going to be rising in importance, having increasing functionality, and increasing prominence.” …

The governor of China’s central bank has given more details about the country's ongoing digital currency pilot. Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the digital yuan pilots have processed over four million transactions to date, totaling more than 2 billion yuan ($299 million). The official delivered his latest remarks at the Hong Kong Fintech Week conference on Nov. 2, Bloomberg reported. According to Yi, the pilots have been going smoothly so far, having rolled out for extended testing in four cities. Growth in demand for digital and contactless payment methods amid the coronavirus pandemic have …

According to a Nov. 2 announcement from The Reserve Bank of Australia, or RBA, the financial institution will be partnering with the Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, the financial services company Perpetual, and software company ConsenSys on a project to explore the potential use of a wholesale central bank digital currency in the country using “Ethereum-based distributed ledger technology." The RBA stated it would be researching the development of a proof-of-concept for “the issuance of a tokenized form of CBDC.” It specifically mentioned wholesale market participants potentially using the digital currency for tokenized syndicated loans on an DLT platform and …

In a Twitter thread on Sunday, Christine Lagarde, former Managing Director of the IMF and current President of the European Central Bank, invited public commentary on a potential eurozone central bank digital currency (CBDC). “We are still in the review and considerations stage, but we’ve just launched a public consultation so that consumers and Europeans can actually express their preference and tell us whether they would be happy to use a digital Euro just in the way they use a Euro coin or a Euro banknote knowing that it is central bank money that is available and that they can …

Huawei has announced that its forthcoming Mate40 smartphone series will include an integrated hardware wallet for China’s central bank digital currency, the digital yuan. This will be the first smartphone to feature such a wallet, according to an official Huawei post on Chinese microblogging website Weibo on Oct. 30. The post also promises that users will be able to control and protect their anonymity and perform dual offline transactions. These enable mobile phone users to transfer funds simply by touching their devices together, even if both are offline. “#HuaweiMate40# series is the first smartphone that supports digital RMB hardware wallet, …