Thank you for the kind introduction. It is a great pleasure for me to participate in this Webinar, hosted by my alma mater.
When I tried to select the topic that may best link all the elements in “Financial Risks, Innovation and Inclusion in a Post-COVID,” I thought about “cross-border payments, digital money, and their impact in the post-COVID world. So, this is the theme of my talk today.
Let me start with why we care about cross-border payments.
Many consider cross-border payments as “plumbing” and normally keep it hidden. It is actually at the center-stage in policymaking today.
Cross-border payments are at the heart of the international monetary system, as well as the lives of the most vulnerable. And yet, cross-border payments have limitations, especially for lower-income countries and emerging markets. Cross-border payments remain slow, opaque, costly, and inaccessible to many.