Central Bank Payments News Updates
The Road Every Payment Takes
Inside Rwanda’s journey toward an interoperable, inclusive, and future-ready payment ecosystem. What happens after you press ‘Send’? Almost nothing, or …
JAM-DEX® – The Challenge of Moving from Early Adoption to Everyday Use in Jamaica
Key Findings JAM-DEX® demonstrates a common retail CBDC pattern: wallet downloads can rise quickly, while habitual CBDC use remains elusive. …
Fragmentation on the Rise? Evidence from Trade Data
Introduction Discussions about global fragmentation are on the rise. The topic has been highlighted by key international organizations like the …
European Wallets Are Making Cross-Border a Priority. Is it Enough?
Europe finds itself at a crossroads on payments: years of regulatory frameworks, significant development of public infrastructure and private sector …
Who Really Pays for Open Banking? Data Interoperability and the Repricing of Payments
Open banking is expected to improve competition in credit markets by democratizing access to financial data: once lenders can reach …
Operational Resilience in Financial Market Infrastructures: A Systemic Imperative in a Changing Operating Environment
Financial market infrastructures are often described as the plumbing of financial markets. The analogy is useful because it conveys the …
In This Issue: AUGUST 2026
- RSwitch CEO Blaise Pascal Gasabira chronicles Rwanda’s journey towards an interoperable, inclusive, and future-ready payment ecosystem, examining the policy decisions, collaboration, and technical foundations underpinning eKash, as well as the road ahead
- Etel Williams and Yohann Townsend of the Bank of Jamaica examine the gap between wallet registration and lasting everyday adoption in Jamaica’s JAM-DEX® retail CBDC, offering lessons for issuers, merchants, and governments
- KU Leuven’s Elif Cansu Akoğuz, Tarik Roukny, and Tamas Vadasz show how mandating the sharing of payment data affects the pricing of payment services, and what this means for the distribution of benefits from open banking
- Mike Gallaher of Gallaher Advisory assesses the growth of European digital wallets and argues that current initiatives remain too narrowly focused on intra-European interoperability, at the cost of global connectivity
- Drawing on two decades of bilateral merchandise trade data from 197 economies, the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute’s Julia Park, Jacob Levy, and Kati Suominen present evidence of global trade fragmentation and what it means for the future of cross-border payments
- Plus, all the latest payments news from around the globe, recent industry reports, noteworthy speeches, and more from the past month
