国际清算银行-信任桥梁和资金流动（英）-2023.7-31页_828kb

BIS Working Paper Summary: Trust Bridges and Money Flows (July 2023)

Key Concepts

1. Cross-Border Payment Challenges: Expensive (~6-7% for $200 remittances), slow, and opaque due to high fixed transaction costs, regulatory hurdles (AML/CFT), thin foreign exchange (FX) markets, exchange rate volatility, and asymmetric information (especially for low-income countries).

2. The Role of Trust: Trust in the issuers and holders of money is fundamental for any financial transaction.

   • Credit/Money Model: Payment requires chains of bilateral trust (pre-funded accounts or IOUs) between counterparties and banks.
   • High Costs of Trust: Establishing and maintaining these trust relations is expensive, leading to market concentration (e.g., ~80% market share by top 4 banks in some EUR correspondent markets). AML/CFT regulations increase compliance costs for banks servicing low-income countries, contributing to withdrawal of Correspondent Banking Relationships (CBRs).

3. Central Bank Role: Can act as a "trust-enhancing mechanism" by providing a common settlement asset (central bank reserves) and platform (RTGS). Swap lines between central banks facilitate FX and reduce spreads/costs during stress.

   • Limitations: Geopolitical considerations hinder extensive use.

4. Tokenization of Money: Creates a ledger-based system where ownership is explicit. Key change: links are not exclusively bilateral.

   • Reduced Trust Costs: Facilitates interoperability by using "gateways" that can certify and mutualize trust in forms of money (e.g., stablecoins, CBDCs).
   • Decentralized Mechanism: Payment requires trust only in the network, not necessarily in the participating parties.
   • Multi-Ownership Model: Crucial for interoperability. Person j can receive payment in asset A if j and the gateway trust A (or another gateway). Eliminates need to build complex trust ties with every issuer, lowering marginal costs for additional currencies.

5. Cross-Border Payment Solution: Global Marketplace: Proposed model for exchanging tokenized money directly across borders.

   • Interoperability: Uses a trusted gateway (or globally mutualized trust) and potentially universal settlement asset (e.g., CBDC) in a marketplace.
   • Foreign Exchange: Can be handled within the marketplace via smart contracts or market makers, potentially linking international markets.

Proposed Improvements

• Efficiency: Lower costs (e.g., SWAP lines reduce FX spreads), faster, more transparent, competitive payments.
• Inclusion: Digital marketplaces offer easier and cheaper options for lower-income countries excluded from traditional systems.
• Market Structure: Tokenization may foster competition, lower concentration, scale better than bilateral trust chains.

Key Findings/Policy Implications

• Significant correlation between FX bid-ask spreads and provider/recipient costs of remittances.
• Central banks need to balance societal benefits against fragmentation risk when deployed (e.g., SWAP lines).
• Centralized platforms with clear governance seem necessary (though private sectors are also building infrastructure).
• CBDCs are not essential for the multi-ownership and marketplace models to work.
• Foreign exchange liquidity is critical for transaction costs.