IMF: Platform for X-Border Payments, Crypto Regs

International Monetary Fund (IMF) staffers are reportedly advocating for a global platform for cross-border payments and for regulations of cryptocurrencies.

These calls to action were published in the September issues of the IMF’s quarterly magazine, “Finance & Development,” according to a Thursday (Sept. 1) report by CoinDesk.

Specifically, Tobias Adrian, financial counsellor and director of the monetary and capital markets department at IMF, said he wants the organization to build a platform that would accept payments in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and issue tokens against them to reduce the cost of international transfers, per the report.

On the topic of regulation of crypto, Aditya Narain, deputy director of the monetary and capital markets department at IMF, wrote that the crypto ecosystem should be regulated in a coordinated, global response rather than by different national frameworks, according to the report.

PYMNTS research has found that half of firms currently use or would like to use blockchain and cryptocurrency for cross-border payments.

Read more: 37% of Firms Use Blockchain, Crypto for Cross-Border Payments

Thirty-seven percent of businesses said they are currently using blockchain and cryptocurrencies for cross-border transactions, and another 13% said they would like to do so, according to the “Blockchain Payments Tracker,” a PYMNTS and Algorand collaboration.

High-friction transactions such as cross-border payments could offer the incentive for more companies to take a serious look at developing blockchain payments, the research found.

The Digital Dollar Project (DDP) announced Wednesday (Aug. 31) that it will start a technical sandbox project in October to explore the practical aspects of implementing a United States CBDC, initially focusing on cross-border payments.

See more: Digital Dollar Project’s Sandbox to Study CBDC X-Border Payments

“The launch of our Technical Sandbox Program marks the next step in our effort to convene the private and public sector in exploration of a central bank digital currency in the U.S.,” Digital Dollar Project Executive Director Jennifer Lassiter said in a press release.

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