Tag: cbdc

admin Retail CBDC , , , , ,

Enable QR-Code Payment to Work Offline (Enhance Operational Resilience)

What we do

We help payment companies to enhance the operational resilience of their QR-code payment system by enabling offline capability.

Problem Statement

The future financial system, CBDC will be coming in the next few years. In order to stay competitive, operational resilience will be the key differentiation.

  • One of the challenges of CBDC is that “with enhanced operational resilience of the payment system, designed with offline capability, that allows some payments to be made without internet access and can be executed during natural disasters or other large disruptions”, US Federal Reserve.
  • As a replacement for M0, retail CBDC needs “to provide [resilient] cash-like payment experience, the ability to handle peak traffic as well as connectivity breaks or offline”, BIS.org.

Offline Solution

Benefits:

  • Enhance operational resilience against Internet network failure, system disruption, and natural disaster
  • Reduce the need for expensive payment data centers to maintain system availability and peak traffic handling
  • Avoid initial payment servers investment to expand globally
  • Financial inclusion: where the Internet infrastructure is poor.
  • Low or zero cost of transactions
  • Zero CO2 emission

To learn more, please contact us, at keith@ibonus.net

admin C&S America , ,

Retail CBDC payments in Latin America and the Caribbean

December 2020 

Source: https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2012f.pdf

Retail payment services in Latin America and the Caribbean are characterised by high costs and insufficient access for large swathes of the region’s population. To overcome these limitations, some of the larger central banks in the region have taken the lead to introduce fast retail payments and develop an open banking ecosystem. Several others have launched central bank digital currency pilots. The shift to digital payments, which is supported by these policy initiatives, is likely to receive further impetus from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key takeaways

• Limited access to retail payment services and their high costs are significant challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Central banks in the region have undertaken major initiatives aimed at promoting more efficient and inclusive payment systems.

• The Covid-19 pandemic should reinforce the momentum of these policy initiatives, as it has accelerated the shift to digital payments and underscored the need for more inclusive and lower-cost payments.

Current Retail Payment Technology: QR Code and NFC

CoDi in Mexico and Pix in Brazil are fast retail payment systems (FRPS) that allow users to execute and finalise payments

in real time and are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, through a platform operated by the respective central banks.

CoDi and Pix share many common features but also present some differences (Table 1). From the viewpoint of final users, coverage is identical. Both are available virtually to all transaction account holders for sending payments.

However, some participating institutions cannot receive payments within CoDi. By contrast, in Pix it is compulsory for all participating PSPs to provide their customers with all the functionalities for initiating and receiving instant payments in their mobile applications. As for access channels, both systems allow payments through mobile devices when a quick response (QR) code is scanned or by using near field communication (NFC) technology.

admin Australia , , , , ,

14-01-21 Bitcoin in Race for Adoption Before CBDC in E-commerce: Australia’s Macquarie

With a runway of a year or more before the Federal Reserve and other major central banks can launch digital currencies, bitcoin and other private cryptocurrencies could gain a foothold in electronic commerce.

Central banks like the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank risk losing the digital-currency race if private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin become too entrenched in electronic commerce, according to a new research note from the Australian investment bank Macquarie.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-race-for-adoption-central-bank-digital-currencies

admin Australia , , , ,

16-11-20 There is currently no strong public policy case to introduce a CBDC for retail use.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has announced a partnership with Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual and ConsenSys Software to explore the use of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) using distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The project is currently limited to the wholesale market, reflecting the RBA’s conclusion in a recent bulletin on the Design Considerations, Rationales and Implications of a Retail CBDC that there is currently no strong public policy case to introduce a CBDC for retail use.

admin Australia , , , , ,

26-09-20 Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed the Bank has no plans to issue a retail CBDC just yet.

Today at the UWA Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, the Head of Payments Policy at the Reserve Bank of Australia, Tony Richards, confirmed the Bank has no plans to issue a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) just yet. Instead, the Bank will continue with research into decentralized ledger technology (DLT) and its uses. 

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/reserve-bank-australia-cbdc-central-bank-digital-currency/

admin Europe , , , , ,

Dutch central bank licenses first digital currency startup

https://coingeek.com/dutch-central-bank-licenses-first-digital-currency-startup-since-crackdown/

The regulator issued a license to AMDAX, allowing the company to process digital currency transactions.

Known as De Nederlandsche Bank, the regulator adopted the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) in April 2020

AMDAX co-founder Valentino Cremona believes that the registration is a big step forward, not just for his company but the industry as a whole. It will lead to the adoption and acceptance of digital currencies, he said.

admin Australia , , ,

Retail Central Bank Digital Currency: online and offline usability

https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/sep/retail-central-bank-digital-currency-design-considerations-rationales-and-implications.html

Reserve Bank of Australia 17th Sept. 2020

Decisions regarding in-person, online and offline usability

If a retail CBDC was being designed as a replacement for physical cash then, at a minimum, it would need to facilitate in-person payments – for example between two individuals or from an individual to a merchant in the retail environment. But, being an electronic system, it would presumably be possible to design it so that the CBDC could also be used to make remote (or online) payments. In this way it would function in much the same way as cards currently do.

As a form of electronic payment system, CBDC might be constrained by the availability of electricity and telecommunications systems, in contrast to physical cash which is ‘always on’ for exchange purposes. However, as noted above, it may be possible to design a CBDC system in such a way that it could be used (at least temporarily) in an ‘offline’ mode, which would be useful in remote locations and offer resilience benefits when power and telecommunications networks were down. For example, it might be possible for CBDC stored on a mobile device or some other small, battery-powered user-access device to be securely transferred to another device via wireless technologies even in the absence of power and telecommunications. However, there would still be a periodic need for power and network connectivity to reload or redeem CBDC balances against commercial bank deposits (and to recharge any batteries). As noted above, an offline mode might be easier to implement with a token-based system than an account-based system.

admin Asia , , , ,

The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 signal India’s first clear intent to launch the ‘digital rupee’.

https://theprint.in/opinion/govt-can-ban-bitcoin-but-for-digital-rupee-to-succeed-india-has-to-do-a-lot/608542/

theprint.in 22 Feb. 2021

Offline vs online capabilities

Ease of use will be crucial to the wide-spread adoption of India’s CBDC. For this, it would be necessary that the ‘digital rupee’ has offline functionality. Several countries are exploring the possibility of enabling offline digital currency transactions. The primary medium being explored for offline transactions are smartphones, smart cards, and wearable devices. However, for a country like India, options such as feature phones or other low-cost technologies accessible to a common man should also be considered.

The last mile

To reach the last mile, it is important to consider the devices that people can use for digital rupee transactions. Anything that is ‘digital’ needs to be stored on a digital medium (e.g. laptop, PC, USB drive, phone, etc.). Although smartphones currently show considerable promise for offline transactions, the reality is that, as of December 2019, smartphone penetration stood at less than 40 per cent in India. Smart sim card-based feature phones, smart cards, wearable devices, and other low-cost technologies should be explored as alternatives or even supplemental options.