G-7 Will Focus on Helping Developing Nations Introduce CBDCs

The Group of Seven (G-7) advanced nations will prioritize how they can better help developing countries introduce their central bank digital currencies (CBDC), Masato Kanda, Japan's senior financial diplomat told a seminar in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

"Fast-moving digital technologies provide tremendous benefits in many years including cheaper and faster cross-border payments available to a larger public but the new technologies have onset of challenges," said Kanda, Japan's vice minister of finance for international affairs. "We have to address risks from the development of CBDCs by ensuring factors such as appropriate transparency and sound governance."

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will host this year's G-7 summit in Hiroshima. Discussions regarding crypto regulation are reportedly expected to accelerate ahead of a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the G-7 countries in mid-May. The G-7 plans to make global crypto regulations tougher, with a focus on increasing business transparency and consumer protection.

"The collapse of FTX was a serious wakeup call on the need for proper consistent regulation across borders, finalizing FSB's (Financial Stability Board) work to develop high-level recommendations on crypto asset activities on the market and on global stablecoin arrangement is important and the effective implementation of this recommendation is also crucial," Kanda said.

FTX Japan customers were some of the first to get their money back from the collapsed crypto exchange on the back of Japan's relatively tight regulatory regime for crypto.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund have been tasked by the Group of 20 major economies to put forward a jointly produced synthesis paper for global crypto rules by September or October.

Read More: G-7 Will Push for Tighter Global Crypto Regulations: Kyodo