The UK Parliament just approved a new measure that would establish cryptocurrency as a regulated industry there. The Financial Services and Markets Bill (FSMB) was presented in July in an effort to make the most of Brexit freedoms and give regulators more control over the UK financial sector. Later, when the bill moved through Parliament, amendments were made to regard all cryptocurrency as a regulated activity and to add provisions for monitoring crypto marketing. The European Union just finalized its Markets in Crypto Assets law, which primarily focuses on stablecoins, and the U.K. is attempting to catch up. The document will be delivered to the King for approval and passage into law after both chambers have agreed on it. Until an agreement is achieved, the bill may be passed back and forth between the Houses of Parliament.
The International Monetary Fund has unveiled a “new class” of cross-border payment system that utilises programmability, better data management, and a single ledger to track transactions using central bank digital currency (CBDC). Tobias Adrian, head of the IMF’s department of monetary and capital markets, stated at a roundtable on CBDC policy that the new kind of platform might help both individual and institutional users by having cheaper costs and quicker transaction times. Additionally, it would make it easier for central banks to act in foreign exchange markets, compile data on capital movements, and settle disputes. The XC (cross-border payment and contracting) platform, which would enable the trading of tokenized domestic central bank reserves, was created using the CBDC infrastructure as a template. In addition to “usefully instilling standards and a safe environment with which to programme financial contracts,” since settlements would be made in central bank money, it would also allow interoperability across assets and money tokenized by the private sector. Agustn Carstens, general manger of the Bank for International Settlements, put out a similar idea in February.
