Central Banking Awards 2026: fourth winners announced

The fourth group of winners of the Central Banking Awards 2025 was unveiled today (March 19), with the digital transformation award going to Bank of Mexico and currency manager to the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (CBCS). Market practitioner awards went to Citi for financial services, eCurrency for digital currency initiative and ACI Worldwide for financial market infrastructure services – retail. 

Digital transformation:  The Bank of Mexico has migrated two of its core systems for market operations to a decentralised, ‘living’ architecture. The Autonomous Decentralized Service-Oriented Architecture, or ADSOA for short, drives Banxico’s debt security auctions as the financial agent of the federal government and its securities administration system.

The system is modelled on biological organisms, with processes arranged into cells that can communicate with one another autonomously. By running several processes in parallel, the system can operate at high speed and self-repair if any cell is corrupted, whether due to a physical outage or software malfunction.

“This award reflects our effort to building an innovative and resilient financial infrastructure, for the benefit of Mexico’s financial system and economic development,” says governor Victoria Rodríguez Ceja. “ADSOA is a key component of our digital transformation strategy that has allowed us to further strengthen our core systems and reimagine the future of our infrastructure, positioning us at the forefront of systems architecture.” 

Currency manager: The introduction of a new currency, the Caribbean guilder, by the Central Bank of  Curaçao and Sint Maarten was needed to engender a sense of unity between the two countries while overcoming political scepticism and pushing back against calls for dollarisation.  

The dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010, the formation of the current monetary union between Curaçao and Sint Maarten, and a legal requirement to replace the former Netherlands Antillean guilder lay behind the central bank’s six-year effort to introduce a new currency. 

The CBCS launched a campaign stressing the need for continued monetary policy sovereignty, including the ability of the central bank to act as a lender of last resort. It also ran a significant media push to inform the public of the changes, which included the use of marine animals on new notes and coins, rather than the national symbols of either of the two countries to avoid any perception of bias. 

“The introduction of the Caribbean guilder has been one of the CBCS’s most significant undertakings in recent history. Being selected as the recipient of Central Banking’s Currency manager award is a profound honour for our institution,” says president Richard Doornbosch. “This award shows what is possible for a small central bank when a professional and enthusiastic team is working relentlessly in close co-operation with trusted partners and advisers.”

Financial services: In a turbulent year for central banks, Citi has striven to provide clients with high-level advice as well as service breadth, technical expertise and execution. 

Building on its founding principles, Citi has advised central banks on cyber security, geopolitical risks and stablecoins as well as helping clients to manage funding costs and boost risk-adjusted returns. The bank notably delivered significant volumes of collateralised financing linked to deposits, SDRs, gold and financial securities. Crucially, it has also secured new custody mandates and provided ever-broader transactional banking services.

“Last year, there was an explosion in collateralised instruments. These were not ‘old school’, driven by distress, but a ‘new school’ of thought – sometimes between the central bank and the ministry of finance – around how to fund more cheaply and efficiently,” says Jay Colllins, vice-chairman of the public sector group at Citi. “We’ve even seen more sophisticated transactions where collateralised structures create both a lower cost funding opportunity and are used to optimise liabilities and currencies. Governments and central banks have been collaborating much more with each other on these trades.”

Digital currency initiative:  eCurrency has acted as both an adviser and technology provider in proofs of concept and live pilots of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) across four continents – including the first national rollout with CBDC as a legal tender, fully integrated to the real-time gross settlement system.

The technology provider has worked with central banks across the globe from Jamaica to Malawi to adopt CBDCs and help local economies lower barriers to accessing digital money, reduce friction in making retail payments cheaper and faster, and address issues of traceability and ease the conduct of monetary policy. 

“eCurrency is honoured to receive this award,” says chief revenue officer Lars Arvidsson. “We appreciate being recognised for our financial ecosystem knowledge, real-world implementation and operationalisation experience of CBDC solutions, and advisory services to central banks across four continents.” 

Financial market infrastructure services – retail: ACI Worldwide’s technology powers national instant-payments schemes, ensuring that transactions happen smoothly and on time. It provided the real-time technology foundation that powers the Central Bank of Colombia’s national instant-payments scheme, known as Bre-B. The technology provider deployed its digital central infrastructure, which includes an addressing directory, real-time clearing and a centralised settlement engine. 

During Bre-B’s implementation, ACI Worldwide’s staff maintained an open mindset to address design challenges to deliver it on time, ensuring a highly successful launch – with more than 500 million transactions processed and 101.7 million payment keys registered since October 2025. The firm’s technology also underpins Kuwait’s real-time account-to-account payment scheme, which has gained significant traction. 

“We are proud to have worked alongside Banco de la República to help bring this vision to life,” says Craig Ramsey, global head of account-to-account payments at ACI Worldwide. “This award underscores the importance of building national payment infrastructures that are inclusive, interoperable and future ready.”