Economic Times Interview: Asia is where its at! 7 of the top 10 CBDC projects are in Asia.

Asia is where its at! The center of gravity for financial innovation is moving to Asia with 7 of the top 10 CBDC projects in Asia. 14:14

Great interview with the Economic Times “ETMarkets Cryptomeet” where we talk about #CBDC and why it matters.

Grateful to Sharat Chandra a real crypto guru, who asked all the right questions including a few I hadn’t expected.

One thing Sharat surprised me with at the end is a question that I loved about the CBDC race! For the record, there is no race, who gets their first is irrelevant. What does matter is understanding what good CBDC technology can do for your country. Clearly if CBDCs helps your population, gov’ts should not wait to build them but its not a race.

This is exactly the thought patter for the Reserve Bank of India’s CBDC which is due to go into trial phase in December. India already has the wonderful UPI real time payment system but is taking the next step to build a CBDC because of the advantages to its population.

With India and China launching retail CBDCs a full 36% of the world’s population will have access to CBDC payment!

Timestamp:

00:30 How is China implementing CBDC? The difference with crypto in how its rolled out.
06:24 Superapps and will CBDC disrupt the superapps? CBDC is the second step in going cashless
11:00 CBDC use in buying pension products and insurance? Banks want CBDC for big purchases.
13:00 CBDC in island nations and Cambodia’s project Bakong, Asia is where its at India’s UPI.
14:14 Asia is where its at!
14:58 Developing countries and CBDC
18:14 Does China have the potential to make the RMB into a regional reserve currency?
22:45 How are m-CBDC in Hong Kong and Singapore’s project Dunbar making CBDCs interoperable?
27:40 Risk of bank intermediation, how does China handle it?
32:13 Do we need hardware wallets for CBDC and financial inclusion?
37:13 Central bank of Nigeria and Bitt, is their a need for public-private CBDC partnerships?
42:30 Will CBDC compete with crypto currency?
43:38 My stablecoin prediction! Will it come true?
47:37 How does programability and intelligence built into CBDC make it smart?
55:06 Do you need blockchain for a CBDC?
58:50 For populace countries blockchain may not work…at least for now?
60:00 Is there a CBDC race? NO! Privacy and inclusivity first!
61:00 Its not about the race…but what good can technology do for your country
61:20 It is wrong to think of financial inclusion as a problem of the developing world!
64:00 Do not dismiss learning from China!

I make these detailed time stamps so you can focus in on the bits of the conversation that are the most interesting to you.

Hope you like them and that they help you learn about CBDC!