 Hi everyone, and welcome to the second day of the DC3 conference from Cryptocurrencies to CBDCs. In this fireside chat, we'll explore whether digital currencies can take financial inclusion to the next level. My name is Stefanie LeLore and I'm here with Mr. Bisoy Dasgupta. Please Bisoy come to switch on your camera is the chief economist at e-currency. I'm with Mrs. Fertima Vanisa Day. She's a crypto lawyer at generaljenivalegal.ch. Mr. Chris Ostrovsky is the global head of public sector engagement at CELO. Mr. Siao Shen-San, principal manager at Amazon AWS. And we'll see a prerecorded video from Mrs. Catherine White. She's an Accenture Fellow at the World Economic Forum. Welcome to you all. As you might know, according to the World Bank, there are still about 1.7 billion adults worldwide who do not have access to financial services. However, we now have the technology to create digital currencies that can offer low-cost, safe, and real-time payments, removing some of the main barriers to financial inclusion. Suddenly, for the first time, they excluded the vulnerable, the invisible, have the choice to access to financial services that they could never dream of. Although surely in a quite unstable and unpredictable environment yet due to the high volatility, sorry, of cryptocurrencies, yet the changes here and the governments and financial institutions are embracing it. So the objectives of this session are to consider first, what are the advantages, the challenges, and the risks that the various type of digital currencies could pose for financial inclusion? And secondly, what can governments do to address them? So Bijoy, are you ready? Thanks, yes. Good morning, good evening to all of you. I'm ready. Thanks, Stephanie, for that kind introduction. This is Bijoy Dasgupta from, based in Washington, DC, with the currency. And I'm going to talk, you know, my opening remarks are really from the work which we've been doing at the ITU's Digital Currency Global Initiative, the Policy and Governance Working Group of which I'm a vice chair. And let's talk about some of the policy principles which are needed for financial inclusion, which is what we've come up in the group. So really there are eight of them. The first one, digital currencies must be interoperable as otherwise financial inclusion cannot be achieved if consumers, businesses, governments, all of us really cannot engage in peer-to-peer transactions across different systems. This is the first key pillar. The second one, of course, is that digital currency should operate through competitive and open networks to reduce costs and increase accessibility for all. The third pillar, of course, is they must be secure as otherwise cyber attacks and other breaches can undermine trust because at the end of the day, trust is at the very heart of what their digital currencies are all about. The fourth pillar is effective regulation and supervision. We heard a little bit about governance yesterday in the cross-border CPDC panel and this is really, really very important to ensure safety, soundness, stability, and we talk about investor protection, consumer protection, data protection, very much so. Next slide, please. So if we come to the second set of policy principles, and again, there are four of them, the fifth one is about access. And this is really very, very important. We must have universal access and in conjunction with that policy efforts should aim to close the digital divide as much as possible. The next pillar, which the working group talked about and arrived at as part of their deliberations, is again to talk to mitigate the risk of exclusion. And here, both the financial intermediaries and governments should aim to advance digital financial literacy programs. You know, very often we take this as a given, with the world, we're here in kind of year four, year five in the digital age, 2022. But again, I think that in our deliberations, it was clear that the financial literacy is still lagging in many parts of the world, even in advanced economies like the US. The next pillar, which we've identified, is a national digital identity system would be helpful for facilitating adoption. Now, this could be through biometric means or other innovations. You know, there is the other program in India, which is a biometric program, and there are other programs around the world. But I think the bottom line is, to the extent possible, we should be using the digital identity systems for adoption. Last but not least, in terms of pillars, is a centralized data registry could also be helpful for a facilitating adoption. And here we've got a balanced data sharing with safeguarding privacy for the public good, and we'll come to that later on during the course of this hour. For data sharing, the basic issue is that the banks, usually banking systems, to collateral-based lending, whereas the promise of fintech and non-banks is we can move to non-collateral-based lending using some of our behavioral data analytics which come from when we use digital currencies for payments and use our track record there. Next slide, please. So these are the eight key pillars, and I just wanted to highlight that the bank of Jamaica, the governor you heard from yesterday, and their CBDC project, which uses a bare instrument for retail CBDC development, financial inclusion is a key driver there. And we are designing and implementing that project to achieve both financial inclusion and some of the other policy objectives of the project. And the use cases are, okay, just two minutes, and the use cases are both bank and non-bank CBDC wallets. Stop, thanks for that, thanks, Stephanie. Thank you very much, Bijoy, very interesting. So now Fatima, are you ready? Yes, thank you for giving me the floor and thank you for inviting me to this fireside chat. So I'm gonna delve right away into the topic. You mentioned that Stephanie, 1.7 billion people are deemed to be unbanked, and more of that are also considered to be what we call underbanked. So meaning that they like an account at a financial institution or mobile money provider. So the key here is in our discussion is about healthy financial inclusion because I mean, obviously we can connect them to the financial system, but it shouldn't lead to any negative kind of consequences for them, such as being over-independent and so on. And in that context and healthy financial inclusion would mean that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs, it being transactional payments, savings, credit which is an important one and insurance which are all delivered to them in a responsible and sustainable way. So I took this definition from a World Bank report. So definitely this is a very humble goal to pursue when phrased in such a way, but there are the barriers to financial inclusion. So our dear colleague Bijoy mentioned some of them in the pillars, but usually there are categorized into three broad categories, being social, cultural, demographic barriers. So people distrust the current financial system, there's literacy issues, safety issues. We can even think of religious, social and cultural ones. Infrastructural barriers, lack of reliable internet connection, electricity, other form of requirements for connectivity, mobile phones, ID as well, and so on and then financial barriers. So for instance, the cost of the financial service are just too high. So these are the more traditional barriers discussed. There is another category that for me is maybe the main barrier to financial inclusion, which is regulation. So there is so much regulatory hurdle, at least in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, it being Switzerland, the European Union, or even the United States, which makes FinTech innovation very slow and costly. And therefore the private sector just has a way harder time to bring this innovation to people and then also gain more financial inclusion within that country or jurisdiction. Therefore I don't think necessarily that retail CBDC is the key to financial inclusion. However, better regulatory environments, better sandboxes, easier access for just FinTech innovations would be key for this financial inclusion, it being through the integration of CBDCs or stablecoins or any other form of cryptocurrency or else. Nonetheless, it's worth noting here that CBDCs have a form of regulatory advantage over the other private FinTech innovations or private sector, just because it comes from central banks and from financial authorities that have an easier access to the regulatory needs to see their regulatory needs met in order for CBDCs to be integrated and adopted by most of the population. So therefore it will be a big drive for the financial inclusion in my opinion. Here it is. I hope it was within the five minutes. Perfect Fatima, thank you very much. Very interesting. So no, Chris, it's your, you're on stage now. Thank you very much. Thank you Fatima. Thank you, Stephanie and Bijoy for your presentations. Yes, my name's Chris Ostrowski. I'm the global head of public sector engagement at CLABS which is the software company that serves the Selo blockchain. I'll explain what the Selo blockchain is in a minute. I previously worked for OMFIF which is a central bank think tank in London and there I set up the Digital Monetary Institute which was a place where all central banks shared their thoughts and their fears on CBDCs, cryptocurrencies and I suppose sharp and accelerating changes that have occurred in the past two years. I certainly saw a big difference myself in that environment from the end of 2017 in the beginning of 2018 where digital currencies were not taken particularly seriously by central banks to the point at the beginning of 2020 where there was a real hunger in first for more information. And we're at the point now where most central banks have made some sort of statement about CBDCs. Many have some sort of proof of concept or pilots going and more have various research departments and research projects where they're looking at how a CBDC might help them in their country. So this is a fascinating time to be talking about digital currencies, about central bank digital currencies and stable coins. And certainly in emerging market countries one of the main policy objectives that is often articulated by central banks is financial inclusion. And when I started working for Celo in September the thing that I certainly noticed was that financial inclusion is one of those things which pretty much everyone is in favor of. You seldom if ever hear a politician never hear a politician or a central banker say that against financial inclusion. So I think we all agree that this is something that is good that if it can be achieved it is a worthy aim that can improve people's lives. I did have a similar definition to Fasma because she's already read it out. I won't repeat what she said. But the idea of being able to access financial products that are sustainable and useful including payment savings credits and insurance is something which we can agree is what financial inclusion is. And as Fasma said, simply creating a CBDC doesn't necessarily drive financial inclusion. There are different types of central bank digital currencies that the Chinese have issued a very interesting CBDC in the last few days. It's still a pilot which is to be mainly tested at the Winter Olympics but the actual ECNY CBDC app that you can see on your phone you can see very clear videos of how it works is quite a step forward. But does it drive financial inclusion? It's difficult to see when you look at what the CBDC app that the Chinese central bank have issued it's difficult to say that on its own drives financial inclusion. It's certainly very impressive in it the way it links to your bank account the way it gives people sort of spending limit options and those sorts of things will certainly make the user experience better if the project's a success. But it's hard to say that it drives financial inclusion. At Selo, what we are trying to do is create a situation where everyone and anyone with a mobile phone has access to any form of currency that they wish. And this obviously means that for people who have never had a bank account and never used mobile money before we're talking about a form of financial inclusion that really is a marked change in people's lives. So if you are someone who has only used cash and uses cash for 90% of your transactions day to day then getting all of those transactions into a digital environment where you use it on your phone is only really possible if the technology exists to allow safe and secure transactions on a mobile phone. Selo uses the blockchain technology and the unique thing about Selo's technology is that it is mobile first. So it is the only blockchain which is entirely mobile native. So all the apps are built on a mobile phone. Anyone who wishes to add to the blockchain and build new products and services can do so. So if I can just paint the picture to you where you can have a CBDC or a stablecoin which is accessible on any mobile phone and you don't need a laptop or a private or public key like you do for normal cryptocurrency you simply have it on your phone. You can use that to transact with anyone else in your own country or elsewhere for very low or almost minimal charges. You can buy and sell things with this app either remotely or in your immediate vicinity and you also have access to the type of products that are simply never going to be available if you have cash. You have access to credit ratings because your payments can be recorded over previous weeks and months. You might have access to a micro insurance product that would never be possible to be developed because of how de-risking occurs with big financial institutions. And you might also have access to the sorts of sort of cashing out and credit policies and micro insurance that would simply not be possible with the current system. And in some ways this is- I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. So that's the vision of what sellers subscribe to you creating the conditions of prosperity by driving financial inclusion. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Thank you. So no, Sao Shen, are you here? Yes. Welcome. So thank you very much for this invitation and I have enjoyed the discussion yesterday and also today and my name is Xiao Jun Jiang and I'm with AWS. And you probably wonder, why AWS is interested in this topic and also what we can just potentially help in this discussion. And I'm in the federal financial team and our team have helped financial regulators to address the different challenges that they may face. And the central bank with digital currency is definitely one of them. And the interest, of course that's, I don't want to claim or I think, from many of the central bank related conversation as in even no central banks will claim that CBDC is a panacea for financial inclusion. And it is really as a policy objective which has been raised by many central banks that it has the potential to just really address financial inclusion in a different way and then becoming a new tool or even a potentially effective tool in addressing the challenge. And I can build my conversation with what has been shared by speakers earlier that's full financial inclusion that it's really, we need to first talk about the financial exclusion and why people are excluded from the financial system. So here that you can see some of our categorization that some are accessing to unsuitable financial services and then they, some basically because of this unsuitability self excluded from the system, like there are costs related, trust related or need-based obstacles for individual citizens to embracing the financial services. Then there's also another category, no access to any financial service at all. And that is related to the ATM local bank is too far there's different challenges that the earlier speaker are already just to talk about. So here that's how to just help central banks to make if financial exclusion is a policy goal for their CBDC project and how can they design to make CBDC address financial inclusion and also how to just later implement a CBDC and which really deliver the result. So here that's, there are a couple of things that we communicated with our central bank cosmos in the way that we call it as inclusive CBDC framework, ICF. And there are a number of components which are important. Number one is policy and not alignment. So if the financial inclusion is really a policy objective and that has to be really included from the beginning of the design of the research of also the different options which need to be really included at a policy level to align the CBDC whole design with the financial inclusion as a policy objective. And if address those barriers mentioned by the speakers earlier, if there's the economic concern, if it is a trust concern and how can the design reflect that concern designed for the purpose. The second piece of people is really serving both the formal and informal economy. So many of the financial inclusion is because many of the citizens are operating in the informal economy and how can CBDC be leveraged to really supporting not only the formal economy but also the informal economy. And I think that's also extremely important. The third piece is the protecting data privacy and data security. If a system which doesn't provide privacy and that doesn't provide that confidence that this will provide them a security system, their data could be temperamental or potentially that will also jeopardize the adoption and how to design in the way to really protect data privacy and data security. And another piece is training and education. When central bank choose a CBDC solution you have also made the decision on how much and on what's the training and education will be needed for your staff, for intermediaries and also for citizens. And how can you do that? Sorry, we need to wrap up. Sure, last two pillar, number one is enable innovation and how to enable other service provider to design service. The last piece is the hardware and offline solution where that's definitely need to address the technology and the infrastructure really be challenged and make sure that this is a tool which available for all. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dao Shin. Now we are going to watch a video from Catherine White. Hi everyone, I'm Catherine White, an Accenture Fellow at the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution based in San Francisco. I'm happy to be here at the DC Theory Conference in this discussion about financial inclusion. In my fellowship work at the forum, I co-lead the Digital Currency Governance Consortium or DCGC, which is a global community of digital currency experts, which was launched in the spring of 2020. DCGC is comprised of 85 member organizations across 33 countries around the world. In November of 2021, we published an eight part white paper series compendium report. Of those white papers was an in-depth study of stable coins for financial inclusion, as well as a look at whether blockchain-based digital currencies might help make cross-border aid disbursement more effective and efficient. I had the pleasure of leading our research for the exploration of blockchain for cross-border aid disbursement. To begin, we acknowledge that the biggest challenges facing cross-border aid disbursement are, in fact, human process and geopolitical challenges, which technology alone cannot remedy. However, many organizations are piloting whether blockchain-based solutions can bring more effectiveness and efficiency to aid disbursement. So we interviewed over a dozen global humanitarian aid organizations, such as the Danish Red Cross, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, UNICEF, World Food Program, Cash Learning Partnership, as well as the major multilateral development banks and key stablecoin operators. Across all the pilots conducted, the top three benefits cited for using blockchain for cross-border aid disbursement were an increased visibility and transparency for funds transfer, increased access to banking for the recipients, and cost efficiency of the payment transfer was reported across many of these pilots. However, there were many challenges cited through the pilot projects, and the top three among these across all of the ones we interviewed were a potential to increase the digital divide, data protection for the end users, and an uncertainty and lack of regulation in the locales. We noted also that serious ethical questions and nuances arise regarding the testing of emerging technologies on people who may be caught up in crisis or find themselves in a vulnerable state, as there are considerable risks to tracking targeted groups of people. However, vulnerable populations also risk being left behind as technology advances. So given the current momentum and volume of pilot projects, it's likely that cross-border aid disbursement will continue to include and even increase the use of blockchain-based digital aid in years to come. In a recent episode of Coin Desk Money Reimagined podcast, members of DCGC discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated mobile use for aid disbursement. For example, the field workers at the humanitarian organizations had to go remote and rely completely on mobile deployment. It was also raised in this episode the point about the private sector being crucial for advancement of humanitarian aid innovation, because the international organizations have the offices and outposts where aid is needed, and they know what modalities to use for the people in those communities, but the private sector has prowess in the deployment of the technology, which can be best done by them. So we have to rely on each other's core strengths of each sector to advance financial inclusion and innovation. I invite you to read the DCGC's companion report and listen to the Money Reimagined podcast following the link shared here. Thank you very much for listening, and I hope you have a wonderful discussion today. Thank you all. So now we'll enter our Q&A session. So for the audience, please, if you have any questions, just type them in the Q&A section and our panelists will try and answer to you. So this session is very interesting and to me, it's a pleasure to moderate since I've been working in Latin America to implement blockchain technology for financial inclusion, and I'm pretty aware of all the limitations that you face where the technological solutions is not enough, as was mentioned in all of this panel. And I think we could maybe sum up the most common barriers of financial exclusion, maybe Sao Shen, you want to sum up what was said in the different panels and your view on it. Sure, thank you for the question. And I think our earlier panel already just referred to this and there are a lot of different categorization, but if we just bring different perspective together and then there are really four type of barriers or three type barriers as others already mentioned. From the economic barriers, we are looking at financial exclusion caused by lack of access to formal economy or formal services. Many of the underserved population works in a shadow economy that is often cash-based and the second barriers in a culture barriers, financial exclusion is often caused by self-exclusion due to traditions or simple lack of trust in financial sector and market barriers and then exclusion caused by lack of competition which fails to provide incentives to service the underserved. The underserved are not traditionally a profit market segment which limit the type of entities waiting to serve them. And the last but not least, technological barrier and a lot of exclusion caused by lack of infrastructure or access to modern technology and access to consistent electricity, internet, technological devices is often lacking among underserved population. So however, many of the underserved are now familiar with mobile technology as access has increased dramatically but even when you have CBDC which are mobile based and then there's still access to mobile devices and I think those are the categorizations which we use. Thank you very much. So before we go to the specifics on how CBDCs would actually lift financial inclusion and maybe Chris, could you, I have this question for you. How will financial inclusion will be judged as a success? How will we measure the success? I think you have to look at people having more power over their lives in a really kind of clear and obvious way. It has to be measurable and it has to be clear. I think simply using currency on a device doesn't necessarily make it more inclusive. It's also what can you do? What are you allowed to do? If you have the opportunity to use currency on a mobile phone, yes, to make it accessible it has to be as easy as making a phone call. You do rely on a mobile device in someone's hand. You do rely on electricity. You do rely on some sort of coverage. Though the way the seller blockchain is designed is not necessarily designed for a smartphone. It could be a cheap mobile phone that you get from the market that just has SMS messaging. So if it's as easy to send an SMS message, if it's as easy to make a phone call and then it gives you access to pay for things on credit monthly, it gives you the opportunity to save and to borrow in a way that cash doesn't. Then you have moved the needle on financial inclusion. And in a way more important than all of that, as we discussed, Web 3, I mean the best examples that we heard there from Catherine in her video was a disbursement. The seller blockchain is mainly used at the moment to dispense aid. So Oxfam, the UN World Food Programme, the World Bank, Care International, they use the seller blockchain to deliver cash benefit payments directly to people. And there are all the issues that Catherine rightly raised that need caution, but that gives the opportunity for people to have access and financial empowerment in a way that they didn't previously. So if a CBDC offers that, offers those changes that are not allowed for people who currently don't have access to a bank account, don't have access to cash, then we can judge it to be a success in terms of financial inclusion. Thank you, Chris. I really like the way you said it should be as easy to transact as to send an SMS on a mobile phone. Thank you very much. So now be sure you have this question for you. Could you elaborate on how CBDCs would in practice help lift financial inclusion in your vision? Thanks, Stephanie, for that question. Great discussion so far. So at the end of the day, what is a CBDC? CBDC is an instrument, it's a digital instrument just like cash, which can be used across all payment rails. It's a liability of the sovereign government or the central bank. It is absolutely safe. It is not a big tech. It is not a stable coin or a cryptocurrency. It is a liability of the state. It's a safe, secure device which can be used, instrument which can be used across all devices, mobile phones, smart phones, the old fashioned phones and they can be linked to bank accounts, they can be linked to e-money and all of that stuff. So at the end of the day, what are we trying to do or what are countries trying to do? They're trying to provide a safe, secure instrument which is easily accessible across all payment rails. And it's fast, it's instant settlement, it's cheap. Now let's come back to how would it operate in practice? Let me give an example. Let me look at Jamaica or Indonesia for that matter. Half the population is non-bank, everybody has a mobile phone. Actually more than the mobile phone penetration is over a hundred percent, right? Now what you're trying to do is the bank-led financial inclusion is not working and neither is the e-money-led financial inclusion and I won't even get to stable coins because there are issues related to the issuer and the liability of the big tech company supporting it. So what CBDC does, it provides the instrument and that instrument since it can operate across all payment rails, it's a safe and secure instrument and you and I can send money to each other and by using that instrument, we're building up a payments history and that data that we are generating, both banks and non-banks can use to roll out a lot of other products, financial products, formal financial products, be it a credit product, a saving product, an insurance product. So it opens up that entire landscape in a secure, safe and fast settlement way, right? And that's the beauty of CBDC. It allows the instruments, see how I'm sure we've talked about, there are a lot of barriers and technology and all of that stuff, but that instrument is the beauty and then it's a public-private partnership where the public sector rolls out the instrument, the private sector innovates and leverages on top of that. Thank you, Vishoy, you're surely enthusiastic about this, it's very nice of you. Absolutely, I mean, yes. And why are central banks taking a little time to roll it out? Because they are thinking about all the sort of the coins and they're designing it correctly to take into account some of these things we have to sort of watch out for. Oh, thank you, Vishoy. That's perfect for the next question I have for Xiao Shen. Xiao Shen, how can central banks just plan, design and architect this inclusive CBDC and realize the potential of CBDCs for all? Yeah, thank you very much for the question and I see a lot of questions actually are also around that. And one particular area we focus on this inclusive CBDC design principle and I shared just within the policy alignment with serving both formal and informal sector, protecting data privacy, data security and provide training and education, enabling innovation and also hardware offline solution. In general, those are the key component appealers that central banks need to address if financial inclusion is one policy goal that's all if it's the desired outcome they are looking for. And again, that go back to the exclusion or the hypothesis, what happens and which prevents citizen to just enjoy a benefit from the financial service, then the CBDC really tap into that. And some of the questions in the discussion about in the environment or in a country which there's a technology barrier, there's KIC related barrier and then those are exactly the type of barriers where for central banks when designed this and then how to just leverage existing technology infrastructure, make the CBDC available 24 seven and how to just scale up or scale down the system to make sure that the cost related concerns can be addressed and how to just using different type of API and the solutions to make sure that the privacy and the data is being protected and also the system is secure. So all those really can be really addressed by the choice of technologies and also the service that the system is leveraging and we are working with many central banks on that, yeah. Thank you, Sarshan. Thank you very much. Now I'm going to you Fatimah with a question but first it's very nice to listen to you all and we're all turning around the fact that okay, everybody wants financial inclusion. Okay, so yes, but sometimes in the way of our good intentions you know, we are missing the point now because we're still having 1.7 billion people out of the system. So the very blockchain industry starts with Bitcoin and with this dream of financial inclusion, many, many bit coiners are fanatics about financial inclusion and the revolution blockchain brings to this particular issue. So Fatimah, in your opinion, is the broader decentralized finance space concerned about financial inclusion or still concerned about financial inclusion? Thank you for this question. I do believe so and you're right for financial inclusion or the narrative of banking, the unbanked which is not necessarily a narrative that is good to be promoted anymore in the way it was before but it's still very prevalent in the, at least within the decentralized cryptocurrency space it being Bitcoin or Ethereum mainly. Let me just add a point here to the entire discussion we had so far. So our perspective seems to be very micro or country by country. So we see financial inclusion as whether or not someone is connected to the financial system of the place it resides for instance or with very limited cross-border applications of remittances and so on. This number of 1.7 billion I would put in perspective with being connected or included within the more global financial system that we have today. And I think this is where cryptocurrency brings a lot of innovation because one can just plug into this like global financial system where you can borrow cryptocurrency land you can do a lot of, I mean I have access to a lot of financial products in a decentralized way which means in a permissionless way. So no one has to authorize you to be able to access that system while if you look at just jurisdictions and how the legacy financial system works today countries can be entirely excluded from the SWIFT network or from being just connected to the global financial system. And this is a huge financial exclusionary event that should not be underestimated. So it is very important that we focus on micro inclusion but it's also as important that we focus on micro inclusion in that sense. If I can just add another point. So I saw someone ask a question about KYC in the chat and that's where I think that the decentralized finance space does care and focus for financial inclusion where the way the decentralized finance products are created or designed, it means that it's either peer to peer or peer to protocol or to smart contracts. So you never have to interact with one centralized entity and therefore they do not necessarily need the same regulatory approvals or licenses that the just legacy FinTech sector would need to be able to provide these products. And because of this then you do not have to go through any KYC email for instance, checks where for instance you would be just or your country of residence would be excluded as a blanket exclusion from this product without any kind of underlying valid justification as to your person. I'm happy to discuss more about this. This is one of my favorite topics. Thank you very much. But actually I have another question for you maybe to compliment what you said before. What do you think the CBDC's builders can learn from the latest developments in the crypto ecosystems like from DAO's from DeFi from NFTs is it there? I think there's a lot to learn and one usually some people say that CBDCs themselves are highly inspired but what happens in the cryptocurrency industry, let's say. So now that also stable coins are very important and a big, big part of the cryptocurrency space CBDCs have to come in also for the native currency to remain relevant in this highly technological era that we're going through. So I think one thing that I would love to see and I think it could be interesting is for CBDCs to see how they can be compatible with other for instance for with NFT marketplaces, which is quite trendy right now or just with decentralized finance financial products also with regards to decentralized autonomous organizations how with the help of CBDC one can imagine new forms of companies or organizations that would be built in a similar manner that DAO's are built and created coordinated on the blockchain. I think there's a lot to get inspired from and also it would be interesting to just monitor what's happening in the decentralized space to see where the focus of the market is and what people are using and need for instance we see in countries where CBDCs where there would be a need for financial inclusion but the native currency is very volatile or is going to hyperinflation for instance people do adopt stable coins or cryptocurrencies in a way to hedge their risk against that native currency. So for instance, their CBDCs will not necessarily lead to a more healthier financial inclusion or system but then it will be interesting for these regulators or central banks to look into stable coins or other form of digital currency integration within the decentralized space. Yes, thank you very much Fatima. It's one of the points we're having to face in Argentina for example with very high inflation rates and our adopters are very attracted by stable coins and the possibility to save money and also to try and get micro-insurance services also. Thank you very much. Bishoy, I'm going back to you with this question. Do you know two potential concerns about CBDCs are disintermediating the banking system and undermining privacy, sorry. Are these real concerns and can they be taken care of with the right CBDC design and architecture? Thanks Stephanie for that question. Yes, these are concerns and that's why the CBDC designs are being architecture and designs are being done to take care of it. So we at the currency are implementing a CBDC in Jamaica and will soon be with many other central banks around the world. So the disintermediation concern is pretty much straightforward. You put in transaction limits, you put in holding limits but of course there is a bigger issue that banks at the end of the day don't need deposits to grow their credit. At the end of the day they need capital and they also need access to wholesale markets for funding. So yes, CBDCs can increase the cost of funding for banks a little bit but with transaction limits and holding limits that is a mitigate. Second thing on privacy, it is very, very important. Privacy is at the heart of the matter in terms of a CBDC system. So that's why the way we are designing the system at the currency is it's a bearer token instrument where you delink the identity of the holder of that token from what the central bank can see in terms of transactions. So that's why it's a public private partnership where the central bank can see the transactions but not who is doing the transactions. Let me just come back to one issue on stable coins and cryptocurrencies. Stable coins and cryptocurrencies have a lot of downside risk and when I hear people say that AML, KYC you can do it without that. It makes regulators and policy makers around the world very nervous because at the end of the day you can undermine the global financial systems. You can undermine monetary stability, sovereign stability, monetary policy and economy and all kinds of checks and balances. So all of these things have a lot of downside risks and clearly regulators and that's why I want to go back to the eight pillars that we put out under the ITUs and DCGI initiative and if you see all of them, it's very clearly designed and effective supervision is a key part of that story. Thank you very much, Bishoy. So, Chris, I'm back to you. I'd like you to tell me, in your opinion, what's the tipping points that will lead to mass adoption of digital currencies? I think ease of use and benefits which outweigh the current system will continue to become more and more obvious. I mean, the examples that we heard from Fatima there would answer the question for this panel is can digital currencies take financial inclusion to the next level? And the answer to that is for some people it already has. I mean, certainly in some places where there were big barriers to remittances, various people offered cryptocurrency solutions that let people transfer the same value for avoiding the barriers and there are certainly a couple of examples in Africa where a new form of remittance simply allowed people to bypass the systems. They didn't use their banks, they didn't use Western Union anymore and that worked. It's always kind of a bit sort of stop and start, you know, one country bans crypto exchanges and then another country allows them and that sort of thing. But right now there are examples of where people who have been excluded from the financial system have been able to do what they wanted to do through digital currencies. But that's not really the sort of thing. I don't really think that's the exact point of the question here. We're talking here about when will it become something that's normal enough, safe enough and regular enough for people to change people's lives, for it to move the needle. The technology already exists. If you can send a photo on WhatsApp to any of us and we're all in different parts of the world here, it is possible to send $5 as well. It's absolutely possible to do that. I think for central banks, they are eager to make sure that privately issued currencies don't become the norm in a way that threatens the current model and it's right to do that. So if you think about it from a central banks point of view, they haven't had their business model threatened for 350 years and now for the first time it is. And this is a big deal. This isn't a small deal. So the best solution from my point of view and Selo, unlike most actors in the crypto sphere, are big supporters of public money and big supporters of central banks and the guarantees that they can provide. Success would look like it being easy enough and for people to use it. And that means it being as easy as using a cryptocurrency instead. So if you were locked out of the system for whatever reason, for political reasons or because there are barriers to entry and you're thinking about using Bitcoin, if a CBDC existed that allowed you to do that, that would be the tipping point where you think, okay, now we've moved the needle away from cash and away from the system where there are barriers to entry to where it's used more widely. So the ease of use is the main tipping point for financial inclusion, for the adoption of digital currencies. When the ease of use is there in terms of devices, in terms of safety, in terms of public money being protected. And that does include some of the KYC and identity issues that B-Joy was talking about. Then I think we will have reached the tipping point. Thank you, Chris. And to wrap up maybe to conclude at this, I think as a personal opinion that trust in CBDCs will also be part of this tipping point now. And I was very interested by what Xiaoxian said that there are two different kind of financial exclusion. One is self-exclusion. And I really like to hear that and I thought a lot about it in the last weeks. And I thought, oh yes, definitely governments have to seduce the population to adopt this new technology and convince that they really want to use it for financial inclusion and that it's really going to change the unfairness of the actual system for part of the population and the unadaptability to their needs. So a lot of challenges for central bonds for governments, but also I'd like to remind what I think I don't remember who said it, but any one of you said that all the actors must participate. We can't expect financial inclusion if governments are not working on the subject if private companies, if financial institutions are not ready to collaborate. And so hopefully this new technology has brought us to think a lot and to move a lot and to change our paradigm. So welcome. And thank you very much to all. It was a very interesting panel. I'm very glad to have shared it with you. So now we'll just switch to the next session. So, okay, so we have, okay, sorry. So there will be two more sessions today for the stable coins track, sorry. So the next session will be at 2 p.m. CET on the challenges and opportunities for stable coins. It will be followed by the session on implementing interoperability for stable coins at 4 p.m. CET. So we hope you will join us for these upcoming sessions and I wish you all a very nice day and thank you again. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Gifty.