Cross-Border CBDC Payments Are 'Viable,' Says Report From Central Banks of Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa

The four central banks are working on a project that will develop and test shared platforms for international settlements with multiple CBDCs.

AccessTimeIconMar 22, 2022 at 10:39 a.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 6:27 p.m. UTC
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Cross-border payments using digital currencies might be coming closer to reality as central banks in Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia said in a report Tuesday their prototype platform for settling state-backed virtual assets was "technically viable."

  • Project Dunbar” is seeking to cut out financial intermediaries and reduce time and cost when paying overseas – making settlement as easy as domestic transactions.
  • The prototype, kicked off in September, is still stuck on questions of regulation and governance as well as who should be given direct access to the platform.
  • The plans would mean commercial banks can pay each other directly in another country’s virtual currency.
  • It’s the latest in a series of projects convened by the Bank for International Settlements, which has also explored using tokenized assets for securities trading in Switzerland, and environmentally friendly green bonds in Hong Kong.
  • Head of the BIS Singapore Innovation Hub Andrew McCormack said in a media statement the project was “laying the foundation for the development of future global and regional platforms.”

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Jack Schickler

Jack Schickler was a CoinDesk reporter focused on crypto regulations, based in Brussels, Belgium. He doesn’t own any crypto.


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