Institutional News : France, Europe, International

1 - FRANCE

 THE ACPR published on July 11 an updated version of its position on the notions of a limited network of acceptors and a limited range of goods and services. This publication has been Geoffroy Goffinet's LinkedIn post (Director of Authorizations, ACPR), which itself elicited a few comments.

 THE AMF announced on July 19 have been granted initial approval by a PSAN (to Forge, a subsidiary of Société Générale). The AMF also announced in a August 10 press release that it was amending its general regulations and doctrine on PSANs in preparation for enhanced registration and the MiCA regulation.

 The French Competition Authority published on July 25 a press release announcing that a grievance had been notified to the Apple group "concerning practices in the sector of the distribution of applications on mobile terminals, which are likely to have effects on several related markets for advertising and consumer services".

 The CNMP (Comité National des Moyens de Paiement) held two meetings:

• A meeting of the working group on the revision of the PSD, held on July 7, provided an opportunity for an exchange of views on the Commission's legislative proposal published on June 28, and on the guidance provided by the French Treasury's Directorate General, notably on the provisions relating to the fight against fraud and on open banking.
• A meeting of the working group on the digital euro, held on July 13, which focused on legislative work. The presentation by the French Treasury of the key provisions of the texts proposed by the Commission and published on June 28 was followed by a wide-ranging exchange of views.

 OSMP (Observatoire de la sécurité des moyens de paiement) has published its 2022 annual report. In its press release of July 11, OSMP points out that ". after an overall decline in payment fraud, OSMP is launching new initiatives to improve fraud prevention and victim reimbursement ". In fact, the 2022 report Chapter 2 of OSMP's report takes up in full the recommendations published by the Observatory on May 16 concerning refund procedures for fraudulent payment transactions. Chapter 3 of the report is devoted to payment acceptance solutions on smartphones or tablets ("SoftPOS"), and sets out a series of recommendations concerning their security. The report was presented at a press conference the Governor of the Banque de France.

 Banque de France published three documents on trusteeship over the summer: a press release on the current state of public access to species in mainland France; a econometric study on forecasting the circulation of euro banknotes during the COVID-19 pandemic; a working document on the reasons for keeping species in France, the main conclusions of which are summarized in a Post LinkedIn Erick Lacourrège, General Manager of Payment Instruments (Banque de France).

Press review

• Payment: the inexorable decline of cash | Les Echos (August 21)
• With cash now used for one payment in two, is it on its way out? (bfmtv.com) (August 22)

2 - EUROPE

2.1 - Cryptos

On July 12, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA ) published a consultation document on "Technical standards specifying certain requirements of MiCA".

Press review

Gradually regulating crypto-currencies: France's winning bet (Stéphanie Cabossioras)

2.2 - Data Act regulations

In a press release dated June 28, the European Commission welcomed the political agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the European Data Regulation.

2.3 - Digital Services Regulations (DSA)  

To mark its entry into force on August 25, Les Echos has devoted a series of articles to the European Digital Services Regulation.

• DSA: the major digital platforms are getting into the thick of European regulation | Les Echos
• Digital: the European way | Les Echos
• What the DSA changes in practice for the general public | Les Echos
• Five blind spots of the DSA, the regulation on online content moderation | Les Echos

2.4 - Digital identity

In a press release dated June 29, the Council of the European Union announced that " the Council Presidency and representatives of the European Parliament have reached a provisional political agreement on the main elements of a new framework for a European digital identity ".

2.5 - Transatlantic data transfers

Article by Sciences Po Chair in digital, governance and sovereignty " Qhat does the future hold for transatlantic data transfers after Meta was sanctioned by the Irish Data Protection Authority? "

3- INTERNATIONAL

3.1 - Crypto regulations

Firstly, the Atlantic Council has published a "Cryptocurrency Regulation Tracker". Cryptocurrency Regulation Tracker "a database that regularly tracks crypto activity and regulation in 45 countries (G20 countries and those with the highest rates of crypto adoption).

Crypto regulation was on the agenda at the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors held on July 17 and 18. In its July 17 press release, the Financial Stability Board(FSB) announced the publication of a report entitled " FSB global regulatory framework for crypto-asset activities ".

A few days earlier, the BIS had published a report entitled " The crypto ecosystem: key elements and risks "which was part of the dossier submitted to the G20 ministers and governors for their aforementioned meeting.

In a press release dated August 15, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that, following the public consultation it launched in October 2022, it had finalized its regulatory framework for stablecoins, stressing that it "seeks to ensure a high degree of value stability for stablecoins regulated in Singapore ".

3.2 - Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)

3.2.1 - Publications by international organizations

Over the summer, BIS published several studies on MNBCs.

A study entitled " Blueprint for the future monetary system "Chapter 3 of the 2023 Annual Economic Report introduces the notion of a " unified ledger ", presented as "a new type of financial market infrastructure - a unified ledger - could capture the full benefits of tokenisation by combining central bank money, tokenised deposits and tokenised assets on a programmable platform ".

A report entitled " Lessons learned on CBDCs "summarizing for G20 ministers and governors the lessons learned from twelve MNBC projects (retail and wholesale) conducted under the aegis of the BIS Innovation Hub . These lessons can be summarized in three points:

• Wholesale CBDCs will be driven by the public and private sector quest to shape the future of trading and settlement;
• A retail CBDC is a complex undertaking and not only for central banks;
• Cross-border CBDC arrangements are a novel territory, and more complicated than their domestic counterparts.  

A report entitled "Results of the BIS 2022 survey on CBDCs and crypto", as well as the biannual update (to July 2023) of its CBDC dataset, a database that tracks MNBC projects around the world.

At the end of July, the CFA Institute published a report entitled " Global survey on CBDCs "According to an August 17 Finextra article, this report "suggests industry is divided on CBDCs".

On June 29, the World Economic Forum published a report entitled "CBDC global interoperability principles ".

3.2.2 MNBC general press review

Among the many articles published on MNBC over the summer, we should mention :

Two articles from the Financial Times:

• Central banks must not be blind to the threats posed by CBDCs
• CBDCs invite risk of global financial fragmentation

An "Opinion" by Maria Demertzis and Josh Lipsky in Les Echos

Digital currencies: the US and the EU need to speed things up

A series of five articles in Intereconomics magazine

• The Geopolitics of Central Bank Digital Currencies
• The Business Case for Exploration of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency
• Domestic and Global Implications of China's Digital Currency
• The Evolution of SandDollar (Bahamas)
• Progress with the Digital Euro - Intereconomics

A John Kiff presentation (slides) Retail CBDC Current Landscape

A LinkedIn Post by Ousmène Jacques Mandeng " rationale for retail CBDC limits seems weak "

3.2.3 - Press review by country

 Brazil

In its "Article IV" report on Brazil, the IMF refers to the Brazilian wholesale MNBC project, noting in particular that " In most countries, plans to introduce a CBDC pursue a combination of objectives, including promoting financial inclusion; making payments systems more competitive, resilient, and cost-effective; and improving cross-border payments .In Brazil, Pix has already been successful in improving financial inclusion and enabling efficient retail payments. Hence, the Digital Real is envisioned as a 'smart' platform for financial services based on a digital ledger (DLT) that leverages the digital representation of assets (tokenization) and programmability, seeking to foster innovation".

According to a Reuters dispatch of August 7, Brazil's central bank announced that its future MNBC, renamed "DREX" and based on DLT, would be launched at the end of 2024 following a test period. However, two articles published at the end of August, one by Ledger Insights(Brazil's CBDC falls behind schedule as central bank suspends innovation lab), the other by Reuters(Privacy, market maturity hurdles facing Brazil's CBDC rollout), suggest that the schedule has not yet stabilized.

 Canada

On August 10, the Bank of Canada published a study entitled " Unmet Payment Needs and a Central Bank Digital Currency " which, according to a Finextra article of August 14, " casts doubts on CBDC value ".

 China

Among the articles published over the summer on e-yuan, the following are particularly noteworthy:

Five articles on the expansion of use cases in e-yuan pilot trials

• China to add digital yuan payment functions to social security cards | Kitco News
• Chinese city of Jinan accepts CBDC payments for bus rides (cointelegraph.com)
• Digital yuan integration introduced to Chinese business air travel (cointelegraph.com)
• China launches digital yuan ATMs in tropical Sanya, allowing tourists to exchange foreign cash for e-CNY | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)
• Tourists from Mainland China can now shop in Hong Kong with Chinese CBDC (forkast.news)

Two articles on e-yuan transactions, relaying PBOC Governor Yi Gang's remarks at a conference in Singapore on July 19. Since the start of pilot trials (end 2019), the number of e-yuan transactions has reached 950 million (for 120 million open wallets) and a cumulative value of 1,800 billion yuan (= USD 250 billion). But, as Yi Gang points out, the amount of e-yuan in circulation today represents just 0.16% of cash (bills and coins) in circulation.

• China's digital yuan transactions seeing strong momentum, says cbank gov Yi | Reuters
• China's digital yuan nears $250B transaction volume - Central bank governor (cointelegraph.com)

 United States

This summer's articles and publications on the Digital Dollar include:

A speech by Graham Steele (US Treasury Department) on the digitization of financial services, in which he discusses at some length the issues raised by a retail MNBC, in particular privacy, as highlighted in a Cointelegraph article.

An article in Revue Banque: " Les États-Unis entrent en phase de test " (" The United States enter the testing phase ").

Two reports from the Digital Dollar Project, an American foundation strongly in favor of a Digital Dollar

• Risk Working Group Paper (digitaldollarproject.org)
• DDP_Retail Cross-Border Remittance Payments_DRAFT (digitaldollarproject.org)

Three articles from the Cato Institute, an American think tank strongly opposed to a Digital Dollar

• Poll: Only 16% of Americans Support the Government Issuing a CBDC
• Introducing a CBDC Would Be a Catastrophe for the Banking System
• CBDC Legislation Recap

 Italy

The launch of the Italian "Leonidas" wholesale MNBC project, led by the Bank of Italy in collaboration with 18 Italian banks, the Italian Banking Association, R3 and NTTb Data Italia, was announced in June.

• Project Leonidas: R3 is delighted to be joining forces with ABI Lab, ABI and NTT Data Italia to revolutionize Italy's financial landscape | R3
• 18 Italian banks collaborate for wholesale CBDC relying on blockchain - CoinGeek
• Italian banks cooperate in CBDC project - ThePaypers

 United Kingdom

On the Digital Pound front, we'll note a speech by the Governor of the Bank of England (Andrew Bailey) on July 10 on the theme " New prospects for money "The Digital Pound Foundation noted that the Governor " urges banks to progress tokenised bank deposits ".

On August 24, the Bank of England published a study entitled "Enabling innovation through a digital pound".Enabling innovation through a digital pound"

Finally, we note the publication in the Financial Times on August¹ of a critical article by Andy Haldane, former chief economist of the Bank of England: " The real scandal of central bank digital currency "

 Russia

In a press release dated July 11, the Bank of Russia announced that the law on the digital rouble had just been adopted by the Duma (the Russian Parliament).

A Kremlin press release on July 24 subsequently confirmed that President Vladimir Putin had signed the text. The communiqué states that " The digital ruble is defined as a non-cash monetary means. Payments and settlements with digital rubles are to be carried out by way of digital ruble transfers performed by the Bank of Russia using the digital ruble platform in accordance with Russian laws on the national payment system ".

In a press release dated August 13, the Bank of Russia announced that pilot tests on the digital ruble would begin on August 15, in collaboration with 13 banks. But, as illustrated by the small selection of press articles below, even if the momentum is there, a number of questions remain.

• Moscow moves ahead with digital currency | Financial Times (ft.com)
• Russia's finalized CBDC law leaves questions over privacy - Ledger Insights
• Russia Recognizes Digital Currencies of Other Nations - Finance Bitcoin News
• Russian banks have digital ruble questions. Consumers unclear on need for CBDC - Ledger Insights

 Sweden

In a press release dated August 23, Sveriges Riksbank gave an update on the progress of its e-krona project, indicating that it was entering a new phase, while specifying that at this stage "no decision has been taken to issue an e-krona".

3.3 - Central bank payment systems

3.3.1 - United States

The highlight of the summer was the "go live" of FedNow, the FED's instant payment service, announced in a press release on July 20. For more details on FedNow, see the two FAQs posted by the FED: a main FAQ focusing on FedNow, and an additional FAQ focusing on instant payments in general.

Among the articles published around FedNow's launch, two from Payments Journal stand out: 6 Ways FedNow Will Transform the Payments Industry and Instant payments set to soar as the FedNow service comes online.

3.3.2 - United Kingdom 

In a speech on July 20 (" Payments: it's all change "), Victoria Cleland (Bank of England) took stock of the ISO 20022 migration of the UK RTGS and outlined the next phases of the RTGS modernization program, the second of which is the introduction of a new core settlement engine.

3.3.3 - BCE 

On June 16, the ECB published its 2022 annual reports on TARGET and TARGET2 Securities.

3.3.4 - Ukraine

Under the title: "Payments in wartime: the story of the National Bank of Ukraine"the EPC published an interview with Andriy Poddyerogin, Director of Payment Systems and Innovation at the National Bank of Ukraine.