Cambodia’s Central Bank Governor, Chea Serey, highlighted the role of Bakong, the Cambodian Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), in promoting cross-border QR payments and increasing the use of the Cambodian Riel (KHR). Speaking at the Nikkei’s Future of Asia event in Tokyo, Serey emphasized that Cambodia’s currency system, dominated by the U.S. dollar, aims to...
Zimbabwe’s new gold-backed currency, ‘ZiG,’ has been dogged by issues of trust. Economists say that fixing broken trust, and not a new currency, will stabilize the economy. ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold, was unveiled by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) in April as a measure to contain high inflation. This move marks the sixth...
Visa has announced a major achievement in the Asia-Pacific region, with its Visa Token Service (VST) generating over one billion tokens. This milestone underscores significant progress in enhancing the security and efficiency of digital payments. Launched in 2014, VST improves the safety of online transactions by substituting traditional 16-digit credit and debit card numbers with...
The Bank of England (BoE) is preparing for groundbreaking innovations in finance, spearheaded by the rise of stablecoin, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and tokenized bank deposits. BoE Deputy Governor Sir John Cunliffe shared the central bank’s position at the Innovative Finance Global Summit on Monday during his keynote address. Cunliffe said the central bank...
The Bank of Israel says it’s preparing an action plan for the potential issuance of a central bank digital currency, though a formal decision has yet to be made. On April 17, the Bank of Israel Steering Committee on the Potential Issuance of a Digital Shekel outlined possible scenarios for the development and deployment of...
The license permits Bitfinex Securities El Salvador to facilitate tokenized assets. El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as ledger tender in 2021. Bitfinex Securities El Salvador, a newly-established entity belonging to cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, has emerged as the first licensed digital asset service provider (DASP) in El Salvador. The licensing comes three...
Financial market regulators around the world hardly know what to make of cryptocurrency. This asset class doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories, while the collapse of FTX in 2022 made the need for smarter regulations painfully obvious. National governments want to assert their regulatory oversight of crypto because controlling currencies is how they manage their...
