Foreign Exchange: Digital Money and the Future of FX

December 2024 

This roundtable considers the work that the BIS Innovation Hub Eurosystem Centre, Singapore Centre, together with the central banks of France, Italy, Malaysia, and Singapore are pursuing to determine how FX will look like in a world of digital money.

The discussion will support this work, with the objective to:

• Promote understanding and share insights on the integration of digital currencies in the FX market.
• Identify challenges and explore opportunities presented by the intersection of FX, DeFi, and wholesale CBDCs.
• Encourage collaboration among stakeholders to shape a forward-looking FX framework that accommodates digital innovations.

This roundtable is closely tied to the work on Project Rialto, which aims to improving instant cross-border payments using wholesale CBDC settlement, details of which are available in the agenda brief. Operating under the theme of Decoding Digital Assets and Payments, this roundtable will explore the inefficiencies in today's foreign exchange markets, and the various initiatives that are being pursued to address these.

Attendees who wish to familiarise themselves with the history of the topic may refer to the reference materials here.