While G7 central banks continue to agonise over supplementing physical cash with digital money, and in the case of the US, ban the central bank digital currency version outright, India has surged ahead with a mobile-based payments platform accounting for half the world’s real-time payments in 2023.| OMFIF
Pix, launched in November 2020, is Brazil’s most visible success in financial technology. Designed as a public, open instant payments platform, Pix| OMFIF
Roughly 1.4bn adults around the world remain unbanked, with the greatest exclusion concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. At the same time, sovereign bonds in these regions are often issued in large denominations and dominated by foreign institutional investors, limiting access for local retail investors and exposing governments to significant foreign exchange risk.| OMFIF