By September, the BIS and IMF should publish a Synthesis report on regulating crypto-assets by September 2023, combining the macroeconomic and regulatory perspectives.
The news came following the meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in India on Friday and Saturday. A joint statement outlined several actions by global standard setting bodies, including regulating crypto-assets, stablecoins and more research on central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
Regarding the Synthesis report, last week, an IMF report was published covering crypto policy suggestions. Despite saying an outright crypto ban should not be the first response, the paper said some IMF Directors believe a ban should be considered an option.
According to Reuters, this was reiterated over the weekend by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who said banning crypto should be an option. In contrast, Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, said the U.S. hasn’t suggested an outright ban but wants a strong regulatory framework.
Apart from the BIS – IMF Synthesis report, the BIS is to submit a report on analytics and conceptual issues and possible risk mitigation strategies for crypto-assets. The body has started to build its own data set to help monitor the sector. In January, the BIS outlined the potential risk mitigation approaches to cryptocurrencies which are to ban them, or isolate them from traditional finance (TradiFi), or regulate them in a similar way to TradFi.
Meanwhile, anti money laundering body FATF is meant to produce further work on the use of crypto for terrorist financing.
Stablecoins and CBDC
Ahead of the G20 meeting, the Financial Stability Board said most current stablecoins would not meet its forthcoming final recommendations for global stablecoins. The G20 confirmed those recommendations will be published by July 2023.
On the topic of CBDC, in July 2023 the BIS will publish a report on key findings and lessons from its CBDC projects. It’s been involved in numerous CBDC projects, including several for cross border CBDC with one of them, MBridge, preparing for production.
In September, the IMF will report the macroeconomic impacts of widespread CBDC adoption. It has already issued several papers on a variety of CBDC topics.
