Portugal: A Renewed National Strategy to Add Efficiency and Modernisation to Retail Payment Services

Following the successful implementation of the first national retail payments strategy in 2022, new challenges illustrate the dynamic nature of the payments ecosystem paving the way for the adoption of a second edition, with renewed focus and a result…

Decoding ISO 20022: Lessons for Cross-Border Payments

As ISO 20022 adoption gains momentum, we believe that policymakers and the broader financial services community can leverage insights from the last 15 years of ISO 20022 implementations, while also drawing from card networks’ more than 40 years of experience…

VOX DEI: The Criticality of Consumers’ Voices in the Development of CBDC

The emerging consensus that consumer acceptance is a critical success factor in a CBDC deployment compels countries at all stages of CBDC development to align their designs closely with consumer needs and expectations. These insights can only be established…

In Conversation with Binur Zhalenov of the National Payments Corporation of Kazakhstan

Central Bank Payments News spoke to Binur Zhalenov, Chief Executive Officer of the National Payments Corporation of Kazakhstan, about the evolution and future of the Digital Tenge, its place within a broader digital revolution, and lessons Kazakhstan’s…

National Bank of Belgium: A Digital Euro for the Digital Era

The possible introduction of a digital euro, in the form of a central bank retail digital currency or CBDC, would be a major project for the euro area and the Eurosystem. It would significantly change the form in which central bank money is made available…

Implementation of the Digital Euro

The digital euro will enter a highly competitive, multifaceted, and heterogeneous payments landscape in the Eurozone. As with any other payment method, it needs to provide additional value for the variety of stakeholders to achieve the envisioned acceptance…

Asian Development Bank: Project Tridecagon — Connecting Payment and Settlement Systems of 13 Asian Countries with DLT/Blockchain

In June this year, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) published the report Connecting Market Infrastructures in ASEAN+3: The Project Tridecagon Proof of Concept. The report explained the result of the proof of concept (POC), which aimed to connect key market…

Driving Retail CBDC Adoption Through Lean Product Development

The Lean Product Development (LPD) literature offers strategies to guide user-centered design and drive adoption. Prominent LPD concepts are discussed here in the context of retail CBDC development.

Towards Digitalising Payment Systems for Financial Inclusion in South Africa

South Africa is considered by many to be a dual economy where a large percentage of the population live in poor conditions in rural areas, and another significantly large percentage are wealthy and live in urban areas. Many of the people that live in…

In Conversation with Igor Velickovski, Manager, Payment Systems Department, National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia

Our tour of the Western Balkans continues this month as we catch up with the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia’s Igor Velickovski, who discusses the transformative role of a recently enacted law on payments, North Macedonia’s SEPA ambitions,…