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That sounds like the war on crypto India edition. I wonder if Paytm was even chartered as a bank or subject to the RBI's banking regulations.
 
Article contains link to full text. It's an easy read.

Fabio Panetta: Beyond money - the euro's role in Europe's strategic future​

I am delighted to be here today: it is a great pleasure to talk about the euro on the 10th anniversary of Latvia's adoption of the single currency. Actually, there are other good reasons to celebrate. The euro itself was launched 25 years ago, in January 1999, and at the end of that year Latvia was invited to start negotiations to join the European Union (EU).

These events are all part of a single, coherent historical process, driven by the integration project that Europe undertook in the post-war period. The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is one of the most ambitious elements of this project, and the euro is both a key achievement and a powerful symbol of success.

More:

 
I skimmed the 13 page speech. He was very candid about the desire to own an international reserve currency for political strength. He assumes that this dynamic is foundational. It will be fascinating to see what happens in the future when fiat fails and money has no national counterparties (gold, silver, crypto).
 

UAE makes first cross-border digital dirham payment, transferring $13.6 million to China​

The first cross-border payment using the Digital Dirham has been successfully completed by the UAE. AED50 million ($13.6 million) was sent to China, with Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Presidential Court, and Chairman of the Board of the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), initiating the payment. The transaction took place during a celebration marking the 50th Anniversary of the CBUAE. This historic cross-border payment using the Central Bank’s digital currency, the Digital Dirham, was made directly with China through the “mBridge” platform.

More:

 
Iran war to spill over to the UAE in 3... 2... /only half joking
 

Linking fast payment systems across borders: considerations for governance and oversight​

Feb 2, 2024 17 minutes long

Presentation by Claudio Impenna (Head of Directorate on Markets and Payments Systems Oversight, Bank of Italy and Workstream Chair) at the CPMI webinar on linking fast payment systems across borders: considerations for governance and oversight, 11 December 2023.

 
Bold emphasis is mine:
Throughout history, innovations in the monetary system have coincided with major leaps in economic activity. Money in the form of book entries overseen by trusted intermediaries opened the door to new financial instruments that spurred trade and commerce. Paper ledgers then gave way to their digital counterparts, bringing profound changes to the economy and society at large. Tokenisation could take this evolution one step further. Tokens integrate the information in a traditional database with rules and logic governing transfers. By doing so, tokenisation enables the contingent performance of actions, enlarging the universe of possible economic arrangements. Delivery versus payment (DvP), where the transfer of the asset is a precondition for payment and vice versa, is the canonical use case, but more elaborate use cases can be envisaged. Having central bank money in the same venue as the other claims enables the settlement of transactions. For private forms of money, tokenised deposits are preferred to stablecoins due to the former's compatibility with the "singleness of money". The 2023 BIS Annual Economic Report argued for a "unified ledger" that brings together wholesale central bank digital currencies, tokenised deposits and tokenised assets all on the same platform. Some applications will be more amenable to tokenisation than others, depending on the legal and governance challenges. This presentation sketches a "tokenisation continuum" ranging from the low-hanging fruit to the more challenging applications that need to overcome legal and governance obstacles.
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There is a lot to unpack in the two bolded sentences.

1. The BIS acknowledges that crypto is "a private form of money". That may be the first time I've seen a banking institution acknowledge that.
2. The BIS wants "one ring to bind them all" - a unified (and centrally controlled) ledger.
3. The BIS is moving forward with an expectation of (presumeably all) nations producing a wholesale CBDC
4. They want to get their proposed unified ledger's hooks into all crypto to one degree or another.
 
Zerohedge hosted a debate on the topic of "The Fate of the US Dollar" with Bob Murphy, Jim Rickards, Brent Johnson and Michael Every:



It's 3 hours long and I have not watched it yet.
 
Contains link to 11 page pdf. Easy, quick read.

Michelle W Bowman: Advancing cross-border payments and financial inclusion​

Speech by Ms Michelle W Bowman, Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at the 19th BCBS-FSI High-Level Meeting for Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, 15 February 2024.

Introduction​

Thank you to the Financial Stability Institute of the Bank for International Settlements and especially to its Chair, Fernando Restoy for the invitation to speak about these important topics. I'd also like to thank the South African Reserve Bank for hosting this gathering. It is a pleasure to join you in Cape Town, and I am delighted to speak with you about advancing cross-border payments and financial inclusion. I find great value in engaging with and learning from our international colleagues on these international and domestic issues.

We are all participants in a global and interconnected financial ecosystem, and payments are a vital component of this system. The payments landscape continues to evolve, through infrastructure upgrades, innovation, changing consumer preferences, and advancements in both the public and private sectors. Faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more inclusive cross-border payment services offer widespread benefits for citizens and economies around the world, with the potential to support economic growth, international trade, global development, and financial inclusion.

More:

www.bis.org

Michelle W Bowman: Advancing cross-border payments and financial inclusion

Speech by Ms Michelle W Bowman, Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at the 19th BCBS-FSI High-Level Meeting for Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, 15 February 2024.
www.bis.org www.bis.org
 
"Faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more inclusive cross-border payment services" is likely code for "CBDC".
 

The FED Is Planning To SHOCK The World - Lyn Alden Bitcoin Prediction​

Feb 22, 2024

Join us in this enlightening episode of "Unscripted Crypto" as we dive deep with Lyn Alden, a renowned investment strategist, into the fascinating evolution of the banking system and its future trajectory. Lyn Alden sheds light on the historical context of banking, the transformative impact of technological advancements, and the significant role cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, might play in addressing the inefficiencies of traditional financial systems. Through a blend of historical insights and forward-looking predictions, this discussion offers a comprehensive understanding of where finance is headed and the potential solutions digital currencies offer to longstanding challenges. Whether you're a finance enthusiast, a cryptocurrency investor, or simply curious about the future of money, this conversation provides valuable perspectives on the intersection of technology, economy, and digital assets. 11 mins long.

 
Pretty decent account of state of things:
he US dollar has been the global reserve currency for over 70 years, enhancing American financial and economic power. Robert Wade writes that the weaponization of the dollar and the dollar payments system against countries such as Russia and Iran over the past decade has incentivised others to find ways to escape the dominance of the US dollar. He looks at just how central the US dollar is to the global economy, and how countries such as the BRICS have been working to create their own alternatives such as new international currencies and using other currencies in important commodity trades such as oil. De-dollarization is coming, but anything close to the end of dollar dominance will be decades ahead.
...
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More (long):

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Long Read: The beginning of the end for the US dollar’s global dominance.

The US dollar has been the global reserve currency for over 70 years, enhancing American financial and economic power. Robert Wade writes that the weaponization of the dollar and the dollar payment…
blogs.lse.ac.uk blogs.lse.ac.uk
 

Drive for Digital IDs and CBDCs: Quest for Dystopian Control – Seamus Bruner​

Feb 25, 2024

How will central bank digital currencies be pitched by governments on a global scale and what will be their impact on our privacy and freedom? Michelle Makori, Lead Anchor and Editor-in-Chief at Kitco News, interviews Seamus Bruner, best-selling author of ‘Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life.’ 11 mins long.



Want to watch more? Here’s the link to the full interview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHKlt...
 
SAO PAULO, February 27. /TASS/. Russia will propose to the BRICS members to form an alternative banking structure to secure trade operations that are politically autonomous, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Bloomberg Saudi Arabia TV on the sidelines of a meeting of BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

"In order for the BRICS countries to develop normally, we need to think about creating our own financial systems functioning independently of politics and ensuring trade relations between our countries," Siluanov said.

According to him, trade among the BRICS countries is expanding. "For these trade flows to work, we need a reliable payment mechanism. Today we will propose to establish an independent settlement payment system based on new principles, first and foremost digital and blockchain principles, principles that could be comfortable for countries, inexpensive for making payments, and clear," Siluanov stated.
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tass.com

Russia plans to offer BRICS to develop financial system independent of politics

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov mentioned establishing "an independent settlement payment system based on new principles, first and foremost digital and blockchain principles"
tass.com tass.com

Sounds like Russia wants a BRICS+ CBDC.
 
pmbug said:
Sounds like Russia wants a BRICS+ CBDC.
Click to expand...

Confirmed:
Russia is prepared to introduce the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as tools to facilitate payments among countries of the BRICS bloc, integrated by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia. In an interview offer to Sputnik, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated that Russia, as chairman of the bloc, would promote adopting a system to address the fragmentation of the current “financial, settlement and payment system.”
...
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news.bitcoin.com

Russia Hints at Development of CBDC-Based BRICS Bridge Payments System – Bitcoin News

Russia has proposed the development of a BRICS-wide payment system that would use CBDC to manage trade settlements.
news.bitcoin.com news.bitcoin.com
 
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Nobody wins.

Lack of sound money is an economic immobilizer.

The whole world becomes the Third World...and produces Third-World levels of food and essentials.

...which kinda fits in with the Davosian deification of Malthus, does it not?
 
Nothing to see, can listen in one tab, surf the forum in a different tab.

Media briefing on the BIS Quarterly Review, March 2024​

Mar 4, 2024

Claudio Borio and Hyun Song Shin summarise the March 2024 Quarterly Review and answer journalists’ questions about financial market developments and the economic outlook. 34 mins long.

Read more: https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2...

 
The BRICS want to break the west's hold on power, but they are not freedom fighters looking to liberate the world. They just want to hold the reigns to the yoke. In an ideal world, the currency competitions that have begun in Zimbabwe (gold) and El Salvador (Bitcoin) spread to more countries. There are certainly a number of countries that have some seeds germinating in that space.

I suspect that if Argentina is able to get the IMF's boot off of their neck, they might open their currency doors to competition from one or both. Milei has certainly talked the talk about it.
 
Hong Kong launches world's first wholesale CBDC pilot

HONG KONG: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) pilot, the world's first such platform for tokenised deposits, assets and central bank...

More:

Please credit and share this article with others using this link: https://www.bangkokpost.com/busines...ng-launches-worlds-first-wholesale-cbdc-pilot. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Bangkok Post PCL. All rights reserved.
 

Countries closing in on digital currencies but US lagging, study shows​

LONDON, March 14 (Reuters) - A total of 134 countries representing 98% of the global economy are now exploring digital versions of their currencies, with over half in advanced development, pilot or launch stages, a closely-followed study on Thursday showed.

The research, opens new tab by the U.S.-based Atlantic Council think tank highlighted that all G20 countries with the exception of Argentina are now in one of those far-along phases although, notably, the United States is falling increasingly behind.

While still inching forward on a banks only "wholesale" digital dollar, one for the wider U.S. population now looked "stalled" the report said, with Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell saying this month, "nothing like that is remotely close to happening".

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered officials to look into a digital dollar in 2022 but it has become a divisive political issue with Biden's Republican rival in this year's U.S. election race, Donald Trump, vowing not to allow it.

More:

 
One central bank head reportedly quoted the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci about the dollar’s dominance on the world stage: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

That’s according to Bank of America strategists led by Michael Hartnett in a research note. They said the remark was made at a Bank of America conference — the bank held a global investment summit in Rome this week.

They also didn’t identify the speaker, though Bank of Italy Gov. Fabio Panetta delivered a speech and Bank of England Gov. Andrew Bailey participated in a panel in a Bank of Italy symposium in Rome this week. Messages left with both central bank press offices weren’t immediately returned.
...
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mar...oubts-about-the-dollar-s-hegemony/ar-BB1jX4Wy
 
From the link:

Central bankers today face many challenges to their independence. Calls are growing for interest-rate cuts, even if premature, and are likely to intensify as half the world’s population votes this year. Risks of political interference in banks' decision making and personnel appointments are rising. Governments and central bankers must resist these pressures.

But why does this matter? Just consider what independent central banks have achieved in recent years. Central bankers steered effectively through the pandemic, unleashing aggressive monetary easing that helped prevent a global financial meltdown and speed recovery.

www.imf.org

Strengthen Central Bank Independence to Protect the World Economy

Independence is critical to winning the fight against inflation and achieving stable long-term economic growth, but policymakers risk facing pressure amid a wave of elections this year.
www.imf.org
 
searcher said:
Central bankers today face many challenges to their independence. Calls are growing for interest-rate cuts, even if premature, and are likely to intensify as half the world’s population votes this year. Risks of political interference in banks' decision making and personnel appointments are rising. Governments and central bankers must resist these pressures.

www.imf.org

Strengthen Central Bank Independence to Protect the World Economy

Independence is critical to winning the fight against inflation and achieving stable long-term economic growth, but policymakers risk facing pressure amid a wave of elections this year.
www.imf.org
Click to expand...
I like independence
I want central banks to be independent from political interference
and I want a monetary system which is independent from central banks
Everybody's happy
 
Peter89 said:
... and I want a monetary system which is independent from central banks. ...
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tenor.gif


Yeah
 
Peter89 said:
and I want a monetary system which is independent from central banks
Everybody's happy
Click to expand...
Nope.

Not those who live (quite well) by seigniorage.

Which is most of the nuevo riche, today.

The elite control the system; they are using it to enrich their cronies, who in turn support the power elites.

Everyone wins, except the middle class.

It stops...when it collapses. Not until.
 
WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - A $1.2 trillion government funding bill passed by Congress will allow the U.S. to lend up to $21 billion to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) trust to help the world’s poorest countries, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Saturday.

Yellen said the funding would make the United States the largest supporter of the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), which provides zero-interest rate loans to support low-income countries as they work to stabilize their economies, boost growth and improve debt sustainability.

More:

finance.yahoo.com

Treasury's Yellen says funding bill allows lending of $21 bln to IMF trust

A $1.2 trillion government funding bill passed by Congress will allow the U.S. to lend up to $21 billion to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) trust to help the world’s poorest countries, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Saturday. Yellen said the funding would make the United...
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com
 
Came across this by accident, posting as an interesting read.

infobrics.org

Institutionalizing BRICS: A Treacherous Path

Against the backdrop of a sizeable expansion in BRICS membership, debates have intensified over the expediency of the bloc’s institutionalization to cope with the rising complexity in its operations
infobrics.org infobrics.org
 

SWIFT planning launch of new central bank digital currency platform in 12-24 months​

LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) - Global bank messaging network SWIFT is planning a new platform in the next one to two years to connect the wave of central bank digital currencies now in development to the existing finance system, it has told Reuters.

The move, which would be one of the most significant yet for the nascent CBDC ecosystem given SWIFT's key role in global banking, is likely to be fine-tuned to when the first major ones are launched.

Around 90% of the world's central banks are now exploring digital versions of their currencies. Most don't want to be left behind by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but are grappling with technological complexities.

SWIFT's head of innovation, Nick Kerigan, said its latest trial, which took 6 months and involved a 38-member group of central banks, commercial banks and settlement platforms, had been one of the largest global collaborations on CBDCs and "tokenised" assets to date.

More:

 
^^^
...
"We hope that the IMF will continue to play a positive role in upholding economic globalization and free trade, keep global industrial and supply chains stable and unimpeded, and foster an open world economy," he said.
...
The IMF does not approve of politicizing economic issues, and is willing to deepen cooperation with China for the country's economic transformation and upgrading, reform, and opening up, and enhance its representation and voice in the IMF, Georgieva said.
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That won't last if China rocks the boat in Taiwan.
 
Just something I came across by accident.

Will BRICS Launch a New World in 2024?​


Thursday, March 28, 2024
By Pepe Escobar

Across the Global South, countries are lining up to join the multipolar BRICS and the Hegemon-free future it promises. The onslaught of interest has become an unavoidable theme of discussion during this crucial year of the Russian presidency of what, for the moment, is BRICS-10.

Indonesia and Nigeria are among the top tiers of candidates likely to join. The same applies to Pakistan and Vietnam. Mexico is in a very complex bind: how to join without summoning the ire of the Hegemon.

And then there's the new candidacy on a roll: Yemen, which enjoys plenty of support from Russia, China, and Iran.

More:

infobrics.org

Will BRICS Launch a New World in 2024?

BRICS doubled its membership at the start of 2024, and faces huge tasks ahead: integrating its newest members, developing future admission criteria, deepening the institution's groundings, and most importantly, launching the mechanisms for bypassing the US dollar in international finance
infobrics.org infobrics.org
 
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