The provision of financial services through mobile phones is a powerful tool to foster financial inclusion in developing countries. Yet, it raises important regulatory questions. Given the vulnerability of the vast majority of potential customers of these services, one of the most pressing...

This paper focuses on how technology might reshape payments going forward. It considers the policy issues and choices associated with crypto-currencies, stablecoins and sovereign digital currencies and emphasises that there is no single model for sovereign digital currency design.While Bitcoin...

The European Commission published its new Digital Finance Strategy on 24 September 2020. One of the centrepieces of the Strategy is the draft Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), designed to provide a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the EU.With MiCA the EU...

Some 1.8 billion people today have a mobile phone and no bank account. Mobile money is the provision of financial service through mobile phones. It offers the substantial potential benefits of financial inclusion to poor people in poor nations. This article explores how trust law can be used to...

This report is the result of a study undertaken in late 2013 on Malawi's legal and regulatory framework for mobile money. The study was commissioned by the MM4P and conducted in consultation with the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM). The study had three outputs which are the focus of this report:(i)...

In 2009, Bitcoin created a world-first decentralised alternative currency that has spawned over 1,700 imitations by private parties. In 2018, governments finally joined the race, as Venezuela issued a world-first sovereign digital currency. Major economies like Canada, China, Singapore and the...

The only central bank money individuals and businesses have today is cash. Everything else they use as money is commercial bank promises. Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) will likely change all this by putting central bank money into everyone’s hands. China is a front runner in this...