Top commercial banks join G7-led central bank digital currency trial
H/t Matt Riley for seeing the first Agora platform news before anyone. His video on topic is at bottom.
by Marc Jones for Reuters News
LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Forty of the world's leading commercial banks have joined a G7-led pilot scheme with the New York Fed and leading central banks from Europe, Korea and Japan for a new digital currency platform designed to speed up and enhance cross border payments.
The Agora project involves seven central banks in total and will aim to see if so-called 'tokenised' bank deposits can be used in combination with tokenised central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in a faster and more advanced system.
It will focus on what are known as 'wholesale' CBDCs - which are used only between banks rather than by the public - and look to iron out the challenges of different time zones, legal requirements and regulatory and technical systems.
The list of commercial banks taking part includes many of the world's biggest lenders such as JPMorgan (JPM.N), HSBC (HSBA.L), UBS (UBSG.S) and Japan's MUFG.
It also cements something of a divide in the development of CBDCs, between the G7-led Agora project and another called mBridge launched in 2021 between the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates and recently joined by Saudi Arabia.
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Reporting by Marc Jones Editing by Tomasz Janowski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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What does the Reuters Agora story mean?
It means the G7 and mBridge will connect
What you are about to read is a penultimate culmination of everything discussed in this space for the last four years. More Context in this footnote.1
(the following was recorded and transcribed post-haste after reading the above article giving founding subscribers an early look at one of the most important developments regarding the future of money since 1971. A cleaned up version with graphics, quotes and context will be created in the next week for premium subscribers. This is a raw version for quick release)
What does the Reuters story mean?
Agora is likely the G7 version of mBridge.
Or it is the west first attempt to create that connecting platform.
Even if it doesn’t work. It means that the intention is there. That the division will not stop trade. It also means that the East and West have been working together on this for sometime. Finally, it means the bifurcation of money into nation, state currency, and citizen currency is going to happen with CBDCs as a key component
It reunites the east and west for trade. It isolates the people from the government in terms of economic wealth. And the way towards a completely mercantile existence for citizens if abused.