Francisco Rivadeneyra

Francisco Rivadeneyra

Director of CBDC and Fintech Policy and Research

Bio

Francisco Rivadeneyra is the Director for CBDC & FinTech Policy and Research at the Bank of Canada. In this role he leads a team developing policy advice in areas of central bank digital currency, electronic money and payments, and the implications for central banks of broader financial innovations. He also is an active researcher working in the intersection of technology, payments infrastructures and finance. His current research studies the security and convenience trade-off of digital currencies and the use of artificial intelligence in the liquidity management problem of commercial banks. His previous work has been on the management of domestic debt and foreign reserves for the Government of Canada.

Mr. Rivadeneyra holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago.


Staff analytical notes

Security and convenience of a central bank digital currency

Staff Analytical Note 2020-21 Charles M. Kahn, Francisco Rivadeneyra
An anonymous token-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) would pose certain security risks to users. These risks arise from how balances are aggregated, from their transactional use and from the competition between suppliers of aggregation solutions.

CBDC and Monetary Policy

Staff Analytical Note 2020-4 Mohammad Davoodalhosseini, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Yu Zhu
Improving the conduct of monetary policy is unlikely to be the main motivation for central banks to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC). While some argue that a CBDC could allow more complex transfer schemes or the ability to break below the zero lower bound, we find these benefits might be small or difficult to realize in practice.

See More

Staff discussion papers

Central Bank Digital Currencies and Banking: Literature Review and New Questions

We review the nascent but fast-growing literature on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), focusing on their potential impacts on private banks. We evaluate these impacts in three areas of traditional banking: payments, lending and liquidity and maturity transformation. We also take a broader look at CBDCs and highlight two promising directions for future research.

Payment Coordination and Liquidity Efficiency in the New Canadian Wholesale Payments System

Staff Discussion Paper 2022-3 Francisco Rivadeneyra, Nellie Zhang
We study the impact of the Bank of Canada’s choice of settlement mechanism in Lynx on participant behaviors, liquidity usage, payment delays and the overall operational efficiency of the new system.

The Positive Case for a CBDC

Staff Discussion Paper 2021-11 Andrew Usher, Edona Reshidi, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Scott Hendry
We discuss the competition and innovation arguments for issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). A CBDC could be an effective competition policy tool for payments. A CBDC could also support the vibrancy of the digital economy. It could help solve market failures and foster competition and innovation in new digital payments markets.

Liquidity Usage and Payment Delay Estimates of the New Canadian High Value Payments System

Staff Discussion Paper 2020-9 Francisco Rivadeneyra, Nellie Zhang
As part of modernizing its core payments infrastructure, Canada will replace the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) with a new Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system called Lynx. An important question for policy-makers is how Lynx should be designed.

Alternative Futures for Government of Canada Debt Management

This paper presents four blue-sky ideas for lowering the cost of the Government of Canada’s debt without increasing the debt’s risk profile. We argue that each idea would improve the secondary-market liquidity of government debt, thereby increasing the demand for government bonds and thus lowering their cost at issuance.

A Policy Framework for E-Money: A Report on Bank of Canada Research

Staff Discussion Paper 2018-5 Mohammad Davoodalhosseini, Francisco Rivadeneyra
We present a policy framework for electronic money and payments. The framework poses a set of positive questions related to the areas of responsibility of central banks: payments systems, monetary policy and financial stability. The questions are posed to four broad forms of e-money: privately or publicly issued, and with centralized or decentralized verification of transactions. This framework is intended to help evaluate the trade-offs that central banks face in the decision to issue new forms of e-money.

Fintech: Is This Time Different? A Framework for Assessing Risks and Opportunities for Central Banks

Staff Discussion Paper 2017-10 Meyer Aaron, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Samantha Sohal
We investigate the risks and opportunities to the mandates of central banks arising from fintech developments.

The U.S.-Dollar Supranational Zero-Coupon Curve

Staff Discussion Paper 2012-5 Francisco Rivadeneyra
The author describes the construction of the U.S.-dollar-denominated zero-coupon curve for the supranational asset class from 1995 to 2010. He uses yield data from a crosssection of bonds issued by AAA-rated supranational entities to fit the Svensson (1995) term-structure model.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G15

See More

Staff working papers

Improving the Efficiency of Payments Systems Using Quantum Computing

We develop an algorithm and run it on a hybrid quantum annealing solver to find an ordering of payments that reduces the amount of system liquidity necessary without substantially increasing payment delays.

Estimating Policy Functions in Payments Systems Using Reinforcement Learning

We demonstrate the ability of reinforcement learning techniques to estimate the best-response functions of banks participating in high-value payments systems—a real-world strategic game of incomplete information.

Eggs in One Basket: Security and Convenience of Digital Currencies

Staff Working Paper 2021-6 Charles M. Kahn, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Tsz-Nga Wong
Digital currencies store balances in anonymous electronic addresses. This paper analyzes the trade-offs between the safety and convenience of aggregating balances in addresses, electronic wallets and banks.

Should the Central Bank Issue E-money?

Staff Working Paper 2018-58 Charles M. Kahn, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Tsz-Nga Wong
Should a central bank take over the provision of e-money, a circulable electronic liability? We discuss how e-money technology changes the tradeoff between public and private provision, and the tradeoff between e-money and a central bank's existing liabilities like bank notes and reserves.

Financial Development and the Volatility of Income

Staff Working Paper 2013-4 Tiago Pinheiro, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Marc Teignier
This paper presents a general equilibrium model with endogenous collateral constraints to study the relationship between financial development and business cycle fluctuations in a cross-section of economies with different sizes of their financial sector.

See More

Technical reports

See More


Bank publications

Bank of Canada Review articles

May 13, 2014

The Canadian Dollar as a Reserve Currency

This article provides an overview of the growth of Canadian-dollar-denominated assets in official foreign reserves. Based on International Monetary Fund data and on internal Bank of Canada analysis, we estimate that the total reserve holdings of Canadian-dollar assets increased from negligible levels before 2008 to around US$200 billion in the third quarter of 2013. We discuss the determinants of this increase, as well as its potential impact on Canadian debt markets, for example, lower yields and therefore reduced financing costs for the Government of Canada, and the possible negative impact on market liquidity.
May 16, 2013

Modelling the Asset-Allocation and Liability Strategy for Canada’s Foreign Exchange Reserves

The Bank of Canada recently developed an asset-liability-matching model to aid in the management of Canada’s foreign exchange reserves. The model allows policy-makers at the Bank and the Department of Finance to analyze asset-allocation and funding-mix decisions by quantifying both the risk-return and liquidity trade-offs for the assets, as well as the risk-cost trade-offs of the funding liabilities.

See More


Journal publications

Journal articles

    • "Government Bond Clienteles and Yields"
      (with Jianjian Jin and Jesus Sierra), In Advances in the Practice of Public Investment Management, Palgrave, 2018
    • "Financial Development, Credit, and Business Cycles"
      (with Tiago Pinheiro and Marc Teignier), Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 2017, 49 (7), 1653-1665.
    • "Monopolies and Economic Growth" (in Spanish)
      (with Pablo Pena), Gaceta de Economía, Fall 2009.
    • "An Empirical Analysis of the Law of One Price in Mexico" (in Spanish)
      (with Marco González-Navarro), Gaceta de Economía, Fall 2004.

"Trade Creation and Trade Diversion of Preferential Agreements: New Estimates for NAFTA" (in Spanish)
(with Jose M. Chavez), Gaceta de Economía, Spring 2002.

Work in progress

  • "Payments System Design Using Reinforcement Learning"
    (with Ajit Desai, Hand Du and Rod Garratt).
  • "E-Money and Payments Policy"
    (with Charles M. Kahn and Russell Wong).
  • "Intraday Trade Dynamics in Short-term Funding Markets"
    (with Mark Rempel).
  • "Foreign Reserves and Tail Risk"
    (with Jorge Cruz Lopez).