The holy grail of cross-border payments is a solution allowing cross-border payments to be immediate, cheap, universal, and settled in a secure settlement medium. The search for such a solution is as old as international commerce and the implied need to pay. This paper describes current visions...

The digitalisation of payments has accelerated over the last decades with the internet and ever faster and cheaper computing. Now, many believe that decentralised finance ("DeFi") offers fundamentally new possibilities for trading, payments and settlement. Moreover, for a few years central banks...

IT progress and its application to the financial industry have inspired central banks and academics to analyse the merits of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) accessible to the broad public. This paper first reviews the advantages and risks of such CBDC. It then discusses two prominent...

Over the last decades, macro-economists have renewed their efforts to reduce the gap between monetary macroeconomics and real-world central banking. This paper reviews how macroeconomics has since 2016 approached the possible introduction of retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC). A...

IT progress and its application to the financial industry have inspired central banks and academics to reflect about the merits of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) accessible to the broad public. This paper first briefly recalls the advantages that have been associated with CBDC and...

Even before their deployment in major economies, one of the concerns that has been voiced about central bank digital currency (CBDC) is that it might be too successful and lead to bank disintermediation, which could intensify further in the case of a banking crisis. Some also argue that CBDC...

As digital payments become increasingly popular, many central banks are looking into the issuance of retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) as a new central bank monetary liability in addition to banknotes and commercial bank reserves. CBDC will have broadly the same balance sheet and...

Even before their deployment in major economies, one of the concerns that has been voiced about central bank digital currency (CBDC) is that it might be too successful and lead to bank disintermediation, which could intensify further in the case of a banking crisis. Some also argue that CBDC...