Abstract of the talk:

“A relatively new type of payment service, instant payment systems (IPS), is emerging to replace traditional payment methods, enabling real-time money transfers. Several countries have introduced IPS as a steppingstone to ultimately be able to issue their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Brazil has adopted such a system called Pix in September 2020 which has since been rapidly adopted by Brazilian consumers and businesses. To ensure the service would be available to as many consumers as possible, the Central Bank of Brazil required large and medium-sized banks to join Pix. Since its launch, Pix has emerged as a preferred payment method by consumers replacing primarily cash.

The webinar will explain how the Brazilian Pix is working, why Pix has been so successful and what impact Pix has had on banking competition and on monetary policy in Brazil. What further steps is Brazil taking to create Brazilian Central Bank issued Digital Currency, and why are programmability and smart contracts using blockchains incorporated in the plan?

How does Brazil’s experiment compare to other countries’ efforts like Sweden and India who also recently introduced instant payment systems and are considering issuing CBDC? Can government issued digital currencies also be transacted internationally across borders, and if yes, can and will CBDCs compete with privately issued crypto currencies, i.e. stable coins which are the closest equivalent ? In Q&A we can discuss whether CBDCs are a threat to privately issued crypto currencies like Bitcoin or as others have suggested to the dominance of the US Dollar in global transactions.”