Tag Archives: Utility settlement coin

In the FT, Chris Giles, Caroline Binham, and Delphine Strauss report about plans of the Bank of England to let fintech companies bank at Threadneedle Street and thereby offer payments systems on a level playing field with commercial banks. The editorial board of the FT welcomes the plans; it seems to have in mind not only competition but also “synthetic” CBDC: By offering fintech companies access to the BoE’s vaults, the governor may inject much-needed competition into the sector. What...

On Alphaville, Izabella Kaminska questions the utility settlement coin project (for an update on the project, see Martin Arnold’s recent FT article). She suspects that USC isn’t really a blockchain project as much as a market infrastructure project — even if it leans on blockchain jargon for the purpose of gaining popular momentum. … On paper, the technology promises to un-encumber cash collateral by creating a much more reliable form of distributed settlement, requiring a fraction of the...

In the NZZ, Axel Lehmann offers his views on the prospects of blockchain technologies in banking. Lehmann is Group Chief Operating Officer of UBS Group AG. New possibilities: Higher efficiency; lower cost; more robustness and simpler processes; real-time clearing; no need for intermediaries; information exchange without risk of interference automated “smart contracts;” automated wealth management; more control over transactions; better data protection; improved possibilities for macro...