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Showing posts with label Digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Digital. Show all posts

Saturday 6 March 2021

The future of money is digital, but is it bitcoin?

 

Don’t be surprised if by the end of the current decade, the e-wallet on your smartphone resembles a multicurrency account. But instead of dealing with commercial banks, you may be a customer of central banks. Several of them, in fact

 

THE idea that much of today’s cash use will shift to digital tokens is neither faddish nor outlandish, as long as you don’t start equating the future of money with bitcoin.

Sure, governments will borrow some elements of the distributed ledger technology behind private cryptocurrencies, but they will very much want to retain control of what circulates as money in their economies. Some will succeed.

Don’t be surprised if by the end of the current decade, the e-wallet on your smartphone resembles a multicurrency account. But instead of dealing with commercial banks, you may be a customer of central banks. Several of them, in fact.

Sound far-fetched? Apart from the Bahamian Sand Dollar, there’s no official online currency in mass circulation yet.

Still, digital yuan pilots are gathering pace as Beijing aims for a possible rollout coinciding with the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Sweden may be the next major nation to follow suit. The Bank of Japan has no immediate plans, but it acknowledges the possibility “of a surge in public demand” for official digital cash going forward.

Even in the US, which is only toying with the concept, digital payment vehicles that don’t rely on traditional bank accounts can increase financial inclusion among cash users, according to a September 2020 paper by Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president Raphael Bostic and others. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says a digital dollar is “absolutely worth looking at”.

Once China and the US are both in the fray, virtual money is bound to become a tool for wielding global influence by carving up the world into new currency blocs. That’s because any token will have dual uses outsidethe issuing nation’s borders.

The dollar or yuan that pops up in a phone wallet in Indonesia or India – backed by a solemn promise of taxpayers in the US or China – could be used for buying goods, services or assets internationally.

Just as easily, this new money can end up replacing domestic currency in people’s daily lives. Although this is no different from traditional dollarisation that occurs in countries plagued by inflation and exchange rate volatility, the convenience and accessibility of central bank-issued digital cash could enable “substitution at a faster pace and larger scale,” according to Tao Zhang, a deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). To stay in control of monetary policy, authorities in smaller economies will need their tokens to be attractive in domestic situations.

The goal for bigger nations may be different: China and the US may want to offer add-ons that make the E-CNY or the Fedcoin the preferred choice for foreigners in settling international claims.

An efficient future will be one in which all central banks’ digital currencies are interoperable. In other words, they’ll interact with one another – and with private-sector alternatives including bitcoin, says Sky Guo, the chief executive of Cypherium.

The US enterprise blockchain startup is a member of the Fed’s Faster Payments Council and of the digital monetary institute of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, or OMFIF, a central banking think tank.

Guo is working on the challenges that will arise when sovereign money gets digitised:

How to process high volumes of transactions quickly, cheaply, and with a strong consensus among registries updated automatically across a network? How to give people a sense of privacy in everyday payments, even after the anonymity of cash is lost?

Central banks will have to make choices. Not all smartphones can run advanced virtual machines, effortlessly executing the software code for automated contracts.

Choose the wrong technology, and the unbanked population might once again get excluded. Ditto for overseas remittances, a US$124 trillion-a-year opportunity for tokens to replace an expensive network of correspondent banks moving money by exchanging SWIFT messages.

But it won’t work for small transfers if the computing power to verify transactions in a decentralised network costs too much. The ideal technology doesn’t necessarily have to be a blockchain, but it should be something “lightweight, flexible and capable of working with legacy systems,” Guo says. Above all, the distributed ledger must be transparent.

There will be other obstacles. “A driving force for lobbying against central bank digital currencies has been established among payment processing giants like Paypal, Venmo and Stripe,” Guo tells me. “Fedcoin won’t need these intermediaries to send funds.

As these companies fall victim to innovation, it’ll be interesting to see how they try to protect themselves from disruption.”

Paypal Holdings Inc, which owns the person-to-person service Venmo, contests Guo’s assertion as false. Supporting and distributing central bank digital currencies is part of Paypal’s vision of an inclusive future, CEO Dan Schulman told investors last month.

Former Bank of England governor Mike Carney, who has proposed an alternative to the dollar through a network of central bank digital currencies, recently joined the board of Stripe Inc.

One way to resolve the tension may be to co-opt the private sector. As IMF economists Tobias Adrian and Tommaso ManciniGriffoli have argued, an official virtual currency could be like Apple’s IOS operating system, with commercial banks and e-money providers running apps on top of it.

The Apple Health app may be fine for a lay user; an athlete will want something more sophisticated. Money could go the same way.

Countries will also have to cooperate with one another. Take M-CBDC Bridge. The project for 24/7 cross-border remittances using central bank digital currencies was begun by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand, but has now been joined by the central bank of the United Arab Emirates and the People’s Bank of China. ─ Bloomberg

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The future of money is digital but is it Bitcoin?

https://www.deccanherald.com/business/business-news/the-future-of-money-is-digital-but-is-it-bitcoin-958338.html 


The future of money is digital, but is it bitcoin?

 

 

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What is Blockchain Technology, its uses and applications?

 

BLOCKCHAIN beyond Bitcoin

 

China gets into blockchain race with US

 

 

China's new digital currency

 

Blockchain: Internet of Value/ Currency of Trust; Private cryptocurrency a misallocation among blockchain technology, say research & economist

 

Blockchain unlocks travel amid the coronavirus pandemic

Blockchain technology allowed 17 million people to travel between China’s Guangdong province and Macau amid the 

coronavirus pandemic.

Friday 5 March 2021

Digital push


 

Go big in digital or risk being left behind. The government took full cognisance of this, which saw it roll out the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint or MyDigital recently.

It dove deep into the national digitalisation journey since 1996 when the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) was initiated and picked up on several weaknesses to address before it went back to the drawing board.

The Covid-19 pandemic and its wrath further cemented the need for digitalisation efforts, not only for the economy to rebound post-pandemic but even more so to future proof the nation from any sort of further crisis.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed (pic below) said the pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses and the gap in the economic structure that has to be addressed immediately.

“Covid-19 affected the B40 more than the T20 and M40. We saw the impact from the MCO on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

“The reality is, most of the traditional or brick and mortar business owners have to shut down because they were unable to generate any revenue for months but they still had to pay their workers and for rental. Most of them have low digital literacy and it is not easy for them to move into the digital economy quickly, ” he said in a 10-point question and answer on MyDigital.

Mustapa added that there was no other choice than to accept and adopt digital technology, where the agenda is to improve the quality of life of the people, to improve business productivity and to stimulate the country’s economic growth.

He said Malaysia is one of the countries with the highest Internet usage, far higher than Thailand and Singapore.

“During the pandemic, Internet data usage rose by approximately 30%. The government sees an importance in this in empowering the business community. Business sectors are expected to grow rapidly in line with global competition and this will give our local businesses opportunities to penetrate the global market to become even more competitive through digitalisation, ” he said.

From a macro perspective, the digital economy is expected to contribute 22.6% to the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025.

MyDigital is also targeted to produce some 500,000 jobs in the digital economy and ensure that some 875,000 MSMEs adopt e-commerce.

For the people, the target is to achieve 100% of households with Internet access and for all students to have access to online learning.

Mustapa stressed on the importance of the blueprint in bridging the digital divide among Malaysians, between the urban and rural and between the young and old.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has raised our awareness that the adoption of digital technology needs to be expedited to protect our people from the risks of the digital economy. We are expected to see a change in the digital economic landscape towards improved digital literacy, creation of high-income jobs, a simpler and better organised banking and financial management, access to better education virtually, and the mobilisation of medical facilities to remote towns, ” he said.

For instance, Mustapa said one no longer needs to rent a shop to run a business and can do so entirely online using Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp.

While digitalisation was not something alien to Malaysia, the minister noted that the digital foundation has to be further strengthened in a more aggressive and integrated manner.

There are three phases to the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint – the first phase from 2021 to 2022 on accelerating adoption to strengthen the digital foundation, the second phase from 2023 to 2025 to drive digital transformation and inclusion, and the final phase from 2026 to 2030 to become the digital product manufacturer and digital services provider for markets in the region.

“The first phase places a holistic emphasis on data and digital intelligence as the lifeblood of empowering the digital economy in Malaysia.

“In the second phase, the government will look towards an inclusive digitalisation strategy where government efforts will be focused towards digitalisation engagement on a larger scale.

“This will also see the private sector empowered with human capital to encourage innovation in business areas such as the gig economy sector whereas phase three will chart the path for strong and sustainable growth in the coming decades, ” Mustapa said.

The government also hoped that the initiatives under MyDigital will serve as a catalyst for 5,000 new start-ups in the next five years and to attract unicorn companies to operate in Malaysia due to its tremendous spillover effect. A unicorn is a privately-owned start-up valued at over US$1bil (RM4.06bil).

When the unicorns perform well, Mustapa said this will contribute to the country’s cash flow and will also become the starting point to attract new foreign and domestic investments of some RM70bil into the digital sector.

“Old or young, urban or rural, or what your level of education or career is, the blueprint is for all of us. There’s something in it for everyone. I urge all Malaysians to grab the available opportunities and make the most of it. Together, we will be able to improve the standard of living of every Malaysian, ” he said.

Source link:

 

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Tuesday 3 May 2016

Jack Ma, Asia's richest envisions the newspaper to leverage Alibaba's technology & resources



http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2016/05/03/let-our-readers-see-china-from-more-angles-and-perspectives/

Ma: 20 more years of enviable growth for China


In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Alibaba founder Jack Ma shares his views on the Chinese economy and the importance of entrepreneurship in supporting development.


CHINA’S economy will face “a difficult three to five years” but the slowdown will be good for its long-term development, Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) just before the e-commerce giant’s takeover of the 113-year-old newspaper.

Ma said the Chinese economy was indeed grappling with structural problems and that the authorities were working hard to steer it onto a new growth path.

But he dismissed fears that China would follow Japan’s route to stagnation, saying the country still had huge potential waiting to be tapped.

The rapid growth of China’s Internet economy and consumer culture could help the country through its temporary difficulties, Ma said.

China would likely continue to grow at a rate “enviable to most other major economies for 15 to 20 more years”, he said.

Ma gave the two-hour interview in Hangzhou, eastern Zhejiang province, during which he also discussed his vision for the SCMP, cultural differences between the east and west, and his concerns for Hong Kong’s next generation.

Commercial and residential buildings in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

China’s economy has been grappling with structural problems but Beijing is working hard to steer it onto a new growth path.

On China’s economy, the businessman said it was unrealistic to expect an economy of such scale to maintain double-digit growth indefinitely.

“There is no reason to expect that an economy of such size can maintain such a growth rate indefinitely, nor is it good for China to continue to grow at such speed,” Ma said.

“After more than 30 years’ growth, spending a few years to adjust its course is reasonable.

“Some say the actual (growth) number could be just 5%. But even with 5% growth, there is no other economy of such size growing at that speed in today’s world.”

Comparing China with an ocean liner, Ma said the Chinese leadership understood that the country’s old growth model was unsustainable and that they needed to chart a new course.

“It is easy for a small boat to change its course. But as the world’s second-largest economy, China is like an ocean liner... we have to choose either to not slow down and overturn the ship, or to slow a bit to make the turn,” he said.

The key was to create enough jobs to keep the economy stable and buy time so the country could complete its much-needed transformation, Ma said.

Fortunately for China, he said, the rise of its Internet economy happened at the right time.

China’s gross domestic product grows 6.7% in first quarter – a good start to 2016

“The traditional industries are struggling, but we also see growth in domestic consumption, the services industry and the hi-tech sector, and young talents are flocking to these areas,” he said.

“The logistics and delivery industries create plenty of jobs for low-skilled workers. We still have a lot of room for growth.”

Ma said the deciding factor in a true economic transformation would be the country’s ability to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit among the young and create an environment to help it flourish.

“I believe there will be some great enterprises arising from China,” he said.

“The monetary policy and supply-side reforms are very important and can help rejuvenate China’s economy.

“But to me, the most important thing is entrepreneurship. If this can flourish in China, China will become successful.”

China’s slowdown had triggered panic among foreign investors, with some choosing to leave the country.

But this actually created fresh opportunities, Ma said.

History had proven that those who bucked the trend to invest in China during difficult times always received good returns, he added.

“China needs to develop its rural areas; China needs to develop its cultural industry. It is also shifting focus to services and IT industries. There are still plenty of opportunities around,” Ma said.

Global media agency in the making



http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2016/05/03/global-media-agency-in-the-making/

In the second part of an interview with SCMP, Ma says he envisions the newspaper to leverage on Alibaba’s technology and resources.

JUST why does Jack Ma want to own a newspaper, and what will he do with it?

Those are the biggest questions that have confronted readers of the South China Morning Post (SCMP) since news broke of Alibaba Group’s acquisition of the 113-year-old English-language newspaper late last year.

Now, for the first time since the Chinese e-commerce giant’s takeover earlier this month, Ma has outlined his vision for the newspaper.

The acquisition has raised eyebrows, with some suggesting that the SCMP – which has for decades been reporting aggressively on China – would change its direction.

A few even believed the newspaper might henceforth gloss over sensitive or controversial issues that risked incurring the wrath of the Chinese leadership.

In a face-to-face interview with the SCMP in Hangzhou, eastern Zhejiang province, Ma addressed these concerns, explaining why he believed in having a narrative on China that was different from that of both the mainstream Western media and Chinese state media.

“I don’t see it as an issue of (coverage) being ‘positive or negative’,” the Alibaba executive chairman said. “It is about being impartial and balanced... We should offer a fair chance to readers (to understand what is happening in China), not just a fair chance to China.”

China’s growth will remain enviable for the next 20 years, says Ma.

As a reader, Ma said, he valued the importance of obtaining unbiased information in order to draw his own conclusion based on the undistorted facts presented to him.

“I believe the most important thing for the media is to be objective, fair and balanced. We should not report a story with preconceptions or prejudice,” he said.

With its access to Alibaba’s resources, data and all the relationships in its ecosystem, the SCMP can report on Asia and China more accurately compared with other media who have no such access.

“Sometimes, people look at things purely from a Western or an Eastern perspective – that is one-sided. What the SCMP can do is to understand the big ‘why’ behind a story and its cultural context.

“I want to stress the importance of being fair to our readers. You should not impose your own view and prejudice on the readers and try to lead them to a conclusion. As a reader, I understand what a fair report is.”

The tech tycoon said his vision was to transform the SCMP into a global media agency with the help of Alibaba’s technology and resources.

Alibaba, the world’s biggest online trading platform, is aggressively developing big-data and cloud technology. Every day, it analyses and processes a massive volume of data that can provide powerful insight into the world’s second largest economy.

Ma reiterated his promise that Alibaba’s management would not take part in the SCMP’s newsroom operations. Rather, it wanted to represent readers’ interests and give feedback on how to improve readers’ experience, he said. “As I said to Joe (Tsai), you are going to the SCMP as a representative of its readers. You don’t have to represent shareholders. You speak for the readers,” Ma said, referring to Alibaba’s executive vice-chairman who is now the chairman of the SCMP. Ma, who last year unveiled a HK$1bil fund to help Hong Kong’s young entrepreneurs start up their businesses, said he invested in the newspaper because he “loves Hong Kong”.

Hong Kong was stuck in a rut and in danger of losing its direction, the billionaire said, urging Hong Kong’s youth to hold on to the city’s uniqueness and have faith in its future.

“The city has lost its can-do spirit. The big businesses are less willing to take risks. I talked to some young people in Hong Kong and they said they are lost. Young people indeed have fewer opportunities than before. But is it true that there are no more opportunities for them? No!” he said.

Hong Kong had many strengths that were unique to the city, Ma said.

“It has the best location. The ‘one country, two systems’ allows it to enjoy the good things from China’s growth and the best things from the West... The quality of Hong Kong’s graduates can match the finest from any other city. Its services industry is first class,” he said.

“Hong Kong people say Hong Kong needs to preserve its uniqueness. I say Hong Kong’s uniqueness is in its diversity, its tolerance of difference cultures... China does not want to see Hong Kong in decline. I have full confidence in its future.” – SCMP

By Chow Chung-Yan The Star

Related:

In talks: A photo illustration shows the South China Morning Post website displayed on a computer in Hong Kong. Jack Ma is in talks to buy a stake in the publisher of SCMP. – Reuters icon videoLet our readers see China from more angles and perspectives’
Bearish market: An employee is seen behind a glass wall with the logo of Alibaba at the company’s headquarters on the outskirts of Hangzhou. Alibaba is trading below its initial public offering price of US68 after plunging 20 in the past year as it grapples with slowing growth, the result of its reliance on a decelerating Chinese economy. — Reuters



Jack Ma’s potential entry lends fire to SCMP