#17: The Future of Money: CBDCs and Beyond

CBDC Broadcast

14 Jun

21st June 2023

With:

| Dr Tony Richards (Digital Finance CRC)

| Sonja Davidovic (BIS Innovation Hub Singapore)

In this session, Dr. Tony Richards (Digital Finance CRC / formerly RBA) and Sonja Davidovic (IMF / formerly BIS Innovation Hub) join FNA to discuss the evolving architecture of digital money. The conversation highlights the RBA’s collaboration with the DFCRC, which moved beyond theory to issue a limited-scale "pilot" CBDC as a real legal claim on the central bank. This pilot tested 140 industry-proposed use cases, including atomic settlement for tokenized assets and automated GST payments.

Shifting to the global stage, we dive into Project Nexus—the BIS's ambitious blueprint to interlink domestic instant payment systems (IPS) multilaterally. By creating a standardized gateway, Project Nexus aims to reduce the "spaghetti" of bilateral connections, enabling cross-border transfers to settle in under 60 seconds across the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

Key Discussion Points:

The Australian Pilot: Key findings from the RBA and DFCRC on how a retail CBDC could solve "real-world" friction in construction and carbon credit markets.
Project Nexus & Scalability: How a single point of connection allows domestic payment systems to scale internationally without custom bilateral integrations.
Cross-Border Interoperability: Addressing the technical and regulatory "speed bumps" of AML/CFT compliance and currency conversion in real-time transfers.
The Stability Mandate: Navigating the impact of digital money on bank deposits and the role of central banks in maintaining a "level playing field."
Public-Private Synergy: Why the successful rollout of CBDCs depends on the private sector’s ability to build innovative "overlay" services on central bank infrastructure.

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