John Kiff was a Senior Financial Sector Expert at the IMF from 2005 to 2021, focusing on financial stability and fintech issues, and OTC derivatives. Before that, he was at the Bank of Canada for 25 years where he managed the funding and investment of the government’s foreign exchange reserves.

Kiffmeister Consulting provides advice to central banks and international financial institutions on digital currencies. It also publishes a daily update on fintech and digital payments developments, and a monthly report on central bank digital currency (CBDC) exclusively for official institutions.

CBDC Academy: Blurring Lines Between Retail and Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency

Until recently central banks have been running their retail CBDC projects along separate tracks. There is now a trend towards merging the tracks, as more central banks look to wholesale CBDC-backed tokenized deposits, and maybe even stablecoins, to achieve their digital retail payment-focused objectives. This session will start by recapping recent developments in the retail CBDC space. It will then explore how the lines between retail and wholesale CBDC are blurring, and assess potential future central bank-backed digital currency configurations.