Unbeknown to Most, A Financial Revolution Is Coming That Threatens to Change Everything

Around 90 central banks are either in the process of experimenting with or are already piloting central bank digital currencies.

On Tuesday, the Bank for International Settlements published the findings of a study it had conducted with four central banks - the Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Negara Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the South African Reserve Bank - into the practical challenges of executing cross-border payments between different central bank digital currencies.

The Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, the Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Negara Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the South African Reserve Bank today announced the completion of prototypes for a common platform enabling international settlements using multiple central bank digital currencies.

It involves a tangle of payment processors, banks, financial clearinghouses, and, if your money is crossing borders, international communication and exchange systems, such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

A customer would open an account directly with a country's central bank, and the central bank would issue digital money in the account.

As a recent UK parliamentary report titled "Central Bank Digital Currencies: A Solution in Search of a Problem?!" put it, "The use of physical cash is in decline in many countries and some central banks are worried that this could undermine public confidence in the monetary system if individuals are unable to convert commercial bank money into cash, which is a direct claim on the state."

As Agustin Carstens, general manager of the Bank of International Settlements put it at a 2020 summit of the IMF: "We don't know who's using a $100 bill today and we don't know who's using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control [over] the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that."
 

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/03/the-world-quietly-took-another-step-toward-embracing-central-bank-digital-currencies.html