IMF Launches Digital Currency for Use by Banks Worldwide

The Digital Currency Authority launched a CBDC that “strengthens the sovereignty of central banks” and complies with IMF recommendations.

In Short

• They describe the CBDC as the Universal Currency Unit or UMU for cross-border transactions.
• The 11,000 banks that make up the SWIFT system would use the digital currency.

IMF Launches Digital Currency for Use by Banks Worldwide. The Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA), a body under the International Monetary Fund (IMF), today announced the launch of a CBDC (central bank digital currency) for use by all financial institutions around the globe. They officially made the launch announcement during the spring meeting of the World Bank and the IMF, which runs through April 16 in Washington, D.C.

In a press release, the DCMA describes its proposal as the Universal Currency Unit (UMU) or Unicoin, created to “conduct transactions in any legal tender.” The note adds that it “functions as a CBDC to enforce financial regulations and protect the integrity of the international banking system.”

To use it, banks integrated into the SWIFT interbank payment system will be able to attach codes and bank accounts to the UMU digital wallet and, from there, carry out cross-border transactions. This means that the system is available to the more than 11,000 financial institutions that comprise the SWIFT system in more than 200 countries.

Using UMU, banks would bypass “the correspondent banking system at wholesale exchange rates.” As a result, transfers are made “at a lower cost and with instant settlement in real-time,” the statement adds. The DCMA notes that UMU adopts “a globally located public monetary system architecture.” They can configure it to comply with “the central bank regulations of each participating jurisdiction.“

IMF revamps banking system by throwing winks at bitcoin

The launch of UMU comes 14 years after Bitcoin rendered banks obsolete by allowing fast, instant, and low-cost international transactions, features with which the DCMA throws a solid nod to Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention. However, the so-called monetary authority distances itself from the first cryptocurrency by clarifying that UMU complies with the recent crypto-asset policy recommendations proposed by the IMF.

Among the nine points in the plan on how countries should regulate cryptocurrencies stands out the plea not to grant crypto-assets such as Bitcoin the status of legal tender, as El Salvador did. The IMF has criticized El Salvador several times since the Central American country became the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Bitcoin is a way out of the crisis.

Robert F. Kennedy took a stand against the recently announced FedNow CBDC, which he considered a threat to financial freedom. Kennedy Jr. claims that Bitcoin provides an escape route for the public when “the bubble invariably bursts.” The presidential candidate believes the government-issued digital currency is the ultimate surveillance and social control mechanism.

The U.S. economy is undoubtedly at its most fragile point in a long time, which has led many in the financial sector to prepare for the worst. Environmental lawyer and U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy have taken a stand against the recently announced FedNow CBDC, which he sees as a threat to financial freedom due to his belief in alternative digital assets.

Specifically, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims that Bitcoin provides an escape route for the public when “the bubble invariably bursts.” He also took to Twitter to assert that the Fed’s newly announced digital currency is amid “a steady barrage of hostile attacks on cryptocurrencies.“

“Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin give people an escape route out of the splash zone when this bubble invariably bursts. So the White House is in cahoots with banks to keep us all trapped in the bubble of speculation and control.” Kennedy

In addition, the presidential candidate said that government-issued digital currency is “the ultimate mechanism for surveillance and social control.” This follows similar statements about the FedNow announcement, specifically about the threat to financial freedoms posed by the Fed’s CBDC.