Evolving to Work Better Together: Public-Private Partnerships for Digital Payments

August 11, 2020 Uncategorized No comments

IMF | By Tobias Adrian speech | July 22, 2020

CBDCs and the IMF - Evolving to Work Better Together: Public-Private Partnerships for Digital Payments I will focus on public-private partnerships to provide central bank digital currency — CBDC. The goal of these partnerships is to preserve comparative advantages: for the private sector to interface with customers and innovate, and for the public sector to regulate, supervise, and ultimately provide trust. In so doing, I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of regulatory clarity and consistency — domestically and internationally — to encourage innovation.

Note that public-private partnerships are not new, even for the provision of money. Cash is designed by central banks but distributed by commercial banks. And most of the money we use — in the form of commercial bank deposits — is created by the private sector; is a private liability; and is settled in great part through private clearinghouses, all under the strict supervision of the central bank.

So what would a public-private partnership look like for the provision of CBDC? Two models stand out.

The first model is “synthetic CBDC” (or “sCBDC,” for short), introduced last summer in my paper with Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli. And the second model — explored by various central banks, including the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) — is “two-tiered CBDC.” Both are increasingly debated, while the initial concept of “full-fledged” CBDC, in which the central bank is the sole developer of services, also remains an option, depending on country circumstances.

See: FFCON20 This Week: Thur, August 13: CURRENCY WARS, DIGITAL ASSETS & DEFI

The two models of partnership differ according to where the boundary is set between the public and private sectors. Both models agree that customer interaction — including customer due-diligence, as well as wallet design and currency distribution — should be left to the private sector. The central bank, instead, would be charged with regulation and supervision.

But which side of this public-private partnership should issue currency and settle transactions? The two-tiered model argues for the central bank. The sCBDC model, instead, opens the door to the private sector. Digital coins, denominated in the domestic unit of account, would be privately issued, although fully backed with central bank reserves. The central bank would license these operators and carefully supervise them. In addition, legal structures would ensure that user funds, held as central bank reserves, would be isolated from the potential bankruptcy of sCBDC operators.

So both models offer an especially liquid and safe payment instrument.

The big difference is the degree of diversity and innovation in the currency itself. In the two-tiered model, the central bank picks one technology and upgrades it occasionally. That choice colors the innovations that come on top, as the currency is embedded in digital applications and spurs new assets. We can imagine, for instance, smart contracts used to program the contemporaneous exchange of DLT-based currency and bonds.

The sCBDC model, instead, encourages private-sector-led innovation at a more fundamental level. Private companies would compete to provide the most user-friendly form of currency and the most efficient settlement platform. Such dynamic innovation could be extremely valuable, given the pace of technological change, and given many central banks’ limited experience in providing retail services.

See: Central banker bulletin: COVID-19 cash concerns to drive digital currency

When a technology moves slowly, it is fine to set it in stone. Think of good old dark-room photography: We all knew what made the best film. The enabling technology was set. A great camera could be kept for years. But when digital photography was introduced, it was like jumping into a moving stream. Even great cameras quickly became obsolete as sensor technology rapidly evolved. And the diversity of cameras exploded as each innovated along a different dimension. In that environment, to have the public sector pick the winning technology would be difficult at best, probably costly, and potentially irrelevant as the private sector continued to innovate.

Even then, in the field of payments, innovation and experimentation cannot come at the cost of instability. Central banks must oversee the safety and soundness, and the operational resilience, of currency providers — as well as ensure financial integrity, financial stability, and the safety of customer funds.

These are challenges, but their nuances are well known. Central banks are used to fulfilling these objectives, even if some retooling may be necessary to evaluate operational risks stemming from new technologies, for instance.

However, central banks would also face new challenges specific to partnering with private firms. I will point out three specific challenges.

The first is the interoperability of coins. This is specific to sCBDC. Interoperability is important for users, so holders of different coins can pay each other. And it is important for market contestability, so new firms can enter and compete on a level playing field. As sCBDC gets off the ground, firms may seek interoperability to build up their user bases and stoke a dynamic developer community. However, interoperability is not always time-consistent. As soon as an sCBDC provider reaches scale, it will try to foster its own developer and user ecosystem by limiting interoperability. So central banks need to introduce and enforce standards, potentially through a consortium with private-sector companies.

See: Virtual Panel via Toronto Centre (Apr 17): Using Stable Coins to Facilitate Financial Stability and Inclusion Under Unprecedented Times

The second challenge is related, and also concerns sCBDC. Market contestability equally relies on ensuring that the bundling of coins with social media or other platforms does not lead to unfair competition. Otherwise, the strong network effects of those platforms would be inherited by the coins. Central banks will thus have to collaborate with anti-trust authorities to strengthen regulation, embed rules in sCBDC licenses, and supervise operators.

The third challenge is to ensure payment system stability — namely, the resilience of business models to macro-economic shocks, including the policy cycle. Central banks will have to evaluate the viability of business plans, as well as the impact of design choices on firms’ bottom lines. For instance, sCBDC operators must be resilient to severe downturns and the low interest rates that accompany them. Even if an operator exits, the market must be sufficiently diversified for others to pick up the slack.

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