Canada doesn’t want any "surprises" regarding central bank digital currencies. In a recent interview with Reuters, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem doubled down on the country's contingency-plan approach to CBDCs, stressing that he sees no urgent need to issue one right now. For Macklem, inter-state competition and coordination remains the key question when it comes to CBDC issuance. He told reporters: “If another country has one and we don’t, that could certainly create some problems. So we want to make sure we’re ready. Currencies move across borders, and so we certainly wouldn’t want to be surprised by some other …

China’s digital currency approach will favor its domestic retail system and prevent the dollarization of the economy according to one former senior official. Zhou Xiaochuan, the president of the Chinese Finance Association and former governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), told attendees at a Eurasia Forum conference on Oct. 27 that the central bank’s focus in creating a digital currency differed considerably from that of the countries in the Group of Seven — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. According to Xiaochuan, the G7 was mainly concerned with “the challenges raised by Libra, Bitcoin, …

Amid a global race toward central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, Cambodia officially launched a blockchain-based platform for digital money transactions called Bakong. "Bakong, a payment and money transfer service through banks or microfinance institutions, was established under the initiative of the National Bank of Cambodia," said an article from Dap-News on Oct. 28. The Asian country's central bank collaborated with a number of entities on the project. Bakong first secured involvement from Cambodian financial giant PRASAC in October 2019. In January 2020, Cambodia's central bank forecast the platform's launch, revealing the system as a closed circuit enterprise. "Bakong is …

Ethereum software firm ConsenSys has just sealed its sixth central bank digital currency project. On Oct. 28, the blockchain organization announced that it will be collaborating with Société Générale Forge on experiments for a digital euro. Société Générale Forge is the digital capital markets platform of major financial services group, Société Générale Group. SG Forge was involved in the issuance of a 100 million euro bond as a security token on the Ethereum blockchain back in spring 2019. It specializes in building institutional-grade models for regulated security token operations registered on the blockchain. Alongside Accenture, Euroclear, HSBC and others, SG …

Bitcoin cannot function as an inclusive currency for the unbanked due to its volatility, Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga said during Tuesday’s Fortune Global Forum conference. He also cited a lack of knowledge about who is behind the cryptocurrency as concerning. “I am not a believer in the volatility or, for that matter, the absence of transparency in who is the person who’s involved with that currency. So, that’s why central bank digital currencies, we’re believers in.” Banga also revealed that Mastercard has a significant patent library relating to CBDCs, which may help explain why he's so positive towards them. Asked …

At the 2nd Bund Summit held on Oct. 25, Bank of England fintech director Tom Mutton stated that while a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, was “a focus” for the Bank of England, the position the bank had taken this past March hadn’t changed. “We haven’t made any decision on whether or not to launch a retail CBDC,” said Mutton. “But we are exploring the pros and cons with interest.” Specifically, the BoE exec stated the central bank was looking into payment options for people in the U.K. who were affected by the COVID crisis “to deliver safe, efficient …

An astonishing 80% of central banks are engaging in work around central bank digital currencies, from research to experimentation and pilot programs. A recent Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, chart demonstrates the growing interest in CBDCs by central banks, as reflected in speeches and reports as well as people’s Google search interests over time. One country, in particular, to watch in this respect is China, which is emerging as one of the leaders in the shift to CBDCs. The People’s Bank of China introduced its CBDC in pilot form in the major city of Shenzhen and plans to use …

The Bahamas, an island nation in the West Indies, made digital currency history on Oct. 20 with the official launch of a new central bank digital currency, the so-called Sand Dollar. It became the first country to roll out a CBDC available to all residents, and while the Bahamas is a small nation — with only 393,000 people — it appears to be an event of some global financial significance. Or is it? “It could be if it succeeds,” Ross Buckley, KPMG-KWM professor of disruptive innovation at University of New South Wales, Sydney, told Cointelegraph. “Other small island nations — …

The Central Bank of Kenya, or CBK, has reportedly started discussions with international central banks to explore the possibility of entering the central bank digital currency space. CBK governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge told reporters during Georgetown's DC Fintech week that: "“We [the CBK] are already having discussions with other global players, in various ways, around the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies. The push comes as a result of mushrooming of private cryptocurrencies and we are already feeling left out and need to create our own space.” From Dr. Njoroge's perspective, the central bank needs to keep a keen eye …

The forthcoming digital yuan will reportedly be compatible with major payment networks within the country. Mu Changchun, the head of the People's Bank of China's digital currency research institute, said that the central bank-backed digital yuan will be compatible with major mobile payment wallets like WeChat Pay and Alipay. According to a report from South China Morning Post, Mu said during a conference that the digital yuan will not compete with WeChat Pay and Alipay: “They don’t belong to the same dimension. WeChat and Alipay are wallets, while the digital yuan is the money in the wallet.” These recent statements …

The co-founder and CEO of major cryptocurrency company Abra is clearly bullish on Bitcoin (BTC). In an Oct. 23 tweet, Bill Barhydt, CEO of peer-to-peer payments platform Abra, claimed that he has significantly increased his Bitcoin holdings a few weeks ago. According to the CEO, Bitcoin now accounts for 50% of his total investment portfolio. Barhydt talked about his holdings on an episode of Money Talks. In an Oct. 23 YouTube live stream, Barhydt reiterated his bullish stance on Bitcoin, claiming that “Bitcoin is the single best investment opportunity in the world right now.” The executive said that Bitcoin’s scarcity …

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), published a draft law this Friday that aims to provide regulatory framework and legitimacy for a forthcoming central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan. The draft law states that the yuan is the official currency of the People's Republic of China whether in physical or digital form. The draft law also appears to take aim at third-party efforts at yuan-backed digital currencies, stating that individuals and institutions are prohibited from making and issuing a currency designed to “replace” digital yuan circulation. This move would presumably criminalize all non-state-sanctioned yuan-backed stablecoins. …