| Danny Russell (Bank of England)
| Catherine Gu (Visa)

There are many challenges surrounding the development of CBDCs, from maximizing interoperability to encouraging public-private sector collaboration and driving consumer adoption.

Aiming to address these challenges is the BIS Innovation Hub London’s Project Rosalind- a joint experimentation with the Bank of England which aims to develop prototypes for an application programming interface that could best enable a Central Bank ledger to interact with private sector service providers to enable the safe provision of retail payments.

To offer further insight into Rosalind- named after British Scientist Rosalind Franklin and her work regarding DNA sequencing, guests Danny Russell (Bank of England) and Catherine Gu (VISA) joined FNA for Session #21 of the CBDC Broadcast.

In this session, we discussed the motivations behind the project and how it allows for further experimentation with CBDC design and interoperability, as well as the importance of public and private sector collaboration, drawing on the role of VISA and other private sector partnerships.

| Catherine Gu, Visa
| Carmelle Cadet, Emtech

Digital money is not a new thing. It’s been around for decades in the form of reserves at the central bank and commercial bank money. But today, we have additional forms of digital money, such as rCBDCs. We also have what we call challenger forms of money with stablecoins as the main example. With the new entrants to the money ecosystem, we must ask: How will the different forms of money interact? Are they substitutes or complements? Is it competition or coexistence?

To answer these questions, FNA was joined by guests Catherine Gu (Visa) and Carmelle Cadet from EMTECH.

The session covered:

• How system providers are looking at rCBDCs as part of their business
• The key to CBDC success following weak adoption in Nigeria, Bahamas and China
• How new forms of money and challenger forms of money will reshape the payments ecosystem
• The roadblocks to the successful integration of rCBDCs with existing systems and infrastructure
• The use cases for consumers and merchants that could spur adoption without crowding the payments market
• Whether jurisdictions could blend digital currencies to address multiple use cases, including a central bank’s motivations.
• Whether the availability of stablecoins and cryptos is pushing some countries to preserve monetary sovereignty
• Short and long-term predictions about the impact and market share of rCBDC and Stablecoins

| Simon Chantry, Bitt
| John Kiff, Satoshi Capital Advisors

Many central banks are studying, designing, prototyping, or rolling out retail CBDCs. Motivations differ significantly across jurisdictions, but there is one potential advantage that could be common to all cases.

If central banks agree on some basic technological foundations, retail CBDCs could interoperate and become a solution to cross-border retail payments. Is this an overlooked potential benefit of retail CBDCs?

We asked guests Simon Chantry (Co-founder & CIO, Bitt) and John Kiff (Head of CBDC/ Digital Captial Markets Advisory, Satoshi Capital Advisors), who joined session #12 of the CBDC Broadcast, to discuss.

The session covered:

• Whether a CBDC could be a catalyst for responsible innovation in the digital economy and ensure interoperability with legacy and future payment solutions for cross-border payments
• The possibility of a CBDC crowding out other payment instruments
• Whether achieving full interoperability is likely if retail CBDCs are designed with local use in mind
• The factors determining if CBDCs could be interoperable
• How foreign exchanges issues typical of cross-border payments be solved via interoperable CBDCs
• The competitors of cross-border retail CBDCs- correspondent banking, stablecoins and cryptos or both
• Whether an FMI’s decision to provide interoperability between a CBDC with another form of money would be a commercial decision based on its business model
• Whether the type of CBDC issued to the market would impact the willingness of FMIs to provide interoperability
• The benefits cross-border retail CBDCs bring to the table

| John Velissarios, Accenture
| Raoul Herborg, Giesecke + Devrient

CBDC is a very particular product. An extremely successful rollout, with massive adoption, could affect financial stability as deposits could migrate to CBDCs. On the other hand, poor adoption could mean a reputational risk event for the central bank. Therefore, unlike most central bank products, it looks like CBDC design should be user-oriented, with consumers and merchants as the main users and commercial banks as distributors. This means that before CBDCs are rolled out, there has to be a design phase that studies under which design options the CBDC will be used will be convenient, as well as safe, reliable, and efficient.

Guests John Velissarios (Accenture/DEA/DDP) and Raoul Herborg (Giesecke + Devrient) joined FNA for session #9 of The CBDC Broadcast as we discussed how some design options could shape the rollout and adoption of CBDCs. The session played close attention to the particular balance CBDCs must achieve to be successful, that is, being effectively adopted without jeopardizing the stability of the financial system.

The session covered:

• How to achieve a digital version of cash to provide an instant and secure payment option for everyone, everywhere
• The obstacles in making CBDCs accessible to all groups of society and factors considered to ensure inclusivity during the design and pilot phases
• Whether central banks should develop global standards to ensure interoperability between jurisdictions
• CBDCs and offline payment capabilities
• Whether banked people with easy access to commercial bank money feel the need to hold and use a CBDC balance