Inflation concerns in Asia, CBDC programmable payments, and more
THE WEEKEND REVIEW – OMFIF
Latest opinion and analysis from OMFIF around the world 26-30 July 2021, Vol.12 Ed.30
Most-Read Commentary
Inflation concerns take back seat in Asia: With a few exceptions, economies in Asia are facing slow vaccination progress, modest fiscal support and steep contractions to the travel and tourism sectors. The challenges faced by policy-makers in the region include capital flow management and faltering consumer demand. However, inflation expectations are stable and rates modest. For the time being, these concerns will be of secondary importance in the coming months, writes Taimur Baig.
Commentary CBDC systems should focus on programmable payments: Central bank digital currencies are close to being widely introduced and many complex matters have been discussed in financial circles. As public digital currencies rapidly transform from theory to reality, there is one important feature that needs to be examined: programmability, writes Wolfram Seidemann. Read more.
Podcast How the Bank of Korea got through Covid-19: Seok Jun Yang, director general for reserves management at the Bank of Korea, discusses how the bank managed its reserves in response to the market turmoil of spring 2020, the global fiscal and monetary policy response to the pandemic and how to strengthen the global financial safety net for future crises. Listen.
Video Solving offline payments for scalable and interoperable CBDCs: Blockchain’s potential is tremendous across multiple industries. Joachim Samuelsson from Crunchfish answers some of the key questions surrounding this topic, such as how important is anonymity in developing CBDCs? And how do you approach certain demographics with lower internet penetration? Watch the video.
Commentary Global renminbi role not now in China’s interest: The renminbi’s global financial and reserve role remains a hot topic of conversation. While Chinese authorities may find it beneficial to deprecate the dollar and the US role in the international monetary system, a major global role for the renminbi is not now in China’s interest, writes Mark Sobel. Read more.
