France
Banque de France CBDC project uses blockchain to settle transactions
Central bank and French lender use blockchain platform to pay for €40m securities tokens
Lagarde welcomes Franco-German fund plan
Covid-19 response fund would be drawn from common EU budget
Debts, deficits, central banks and inflation
Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood ask what insights history can provide for central banks and governments managing abrupt, large increases in debt
People: Sandra Boss quits BoE roles to join BlackRock
Prudential committee member to join asset manager; Coeuré to head committee on Covid-19; State Bank of Vietnam appoints new director-general
Transfer season
Trade frictions with the US have caused a mass industrial transfer to China’s neighbours. Zhou Chengjun, IFF Academic Committee member and inspector of the Macro‑prudential Policy Bureau of the People’s Bank of China, says that shouldn’t stop China…
Crises enliven ‘totalitarian temptations’
The coronavirus pandemic will embolden governments and bodies such as the International Monetary Fund to grasp for more power, writes Steve Hanke
Banque de France predicts 6% economic contraction
Confinement laws have had a significant impact on activity
Banque de France seeks partner for wholesale CBDC project
Project will explore CBDC use cases in interbank payment space
ECB strongly criticised by French and Italian leaders
Lagarde’s words spark Italian anger while Macron says first ECB measures are not sufficient
Lagarde misstep overshadows ‘bold’ measures, analysts say
ECB president seemed to have hampered governments’ debt financing at a critical juncture
Ghana’s Addison on banking reform, innovation and the future of the eco
The Bank of Ghana governor speaks about the next steps in banking reform and why West Africa may need more time to start using a common currency
Lifetime achievement award: Otmar Issing
The architect of the euro’s monetary operating framework is still playing an important role in shaping the debate on monetary policy
Specialised lending initiative: BNP Paribas
A new ‘global’ setup helped secure US dollar-denominated assets from a Eurosystem central bank
Asset manager of the year: Amundi Asset Management
The French asset manager helped reserve managers meet ESG criteria while also boosting central bank assets under management
Treasury systems initiative: Calypso Technology
The tech company secured important breakthroughs including with its Maps treasury operations system
Andorra seeks to join International Monetary Fund
Tiny principality would bring IMF members to a total of 190
‘Green finance’ standards ineffective with smaller firms – BdF paper
Banks lend to smaller firms irrespective of their industries’ polluting records, researcher says
Banque de France to launch CBDC experiments in 2020
De Galhau says new directorate will look at using wholesale CBDC in transactions for tokenised assets
Kansas Fed paper looks at weak US fraud controls
US has much higher ‘in-person fraud’ rates than three other developed economies, researcher says
People: French official becomes ECB’s market operations director
RBNZ replaces assistant governor role in main office with Auckland post; World Bank’s investment arm gets new managing executive officer
The challenges facing Christine Lagarde
The new ECB president will need to focus on a successful review of the ECB’s monetary and communications policy, while encouraging fiscal stimulus and structural reform
MAS develops fintech information-sharing platform
Singapore partners with Canadian and French regulators; Banque de France opens new office in Singapore
Central banks turn to Instagram to reach younger generations
The audiovisual social media network is helping some central banks offer financial education and other campaigns for millennials and Gen Zs
King calls for radical shake-up to escape ‘low-growth trap’
Central bank models fail to appreciate demand-side secular stagnation; IMF could help to drive country-specific policies to reallocate resources