Decentralized finance: Innovations and challenges
Decentralized finance surged in popularity around 2020. We explore its value and limitations and highlight some potential regulatory concerns.
Payment and financial market infrastructures
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Estimating the Appropriate Quantity of Settlement Balances in a Floor System
This paper presents two complementary approaches to estimating the appropriate quantity of settlement balances needed to effectively operate monetary policy under a floor system in Canada. -
Three things we learned about the Lynx payment system
Canada transitioned to a new wholesale payment system, Lynx, in August 2021. Lynx is based on a real-time settlement model that eliminates credit risk in the system. This model can require more liquidity; however, Lynx’s design allows Canada’s wholesale payments to settle efficiently. -
Anonymous Credentials: Secret-Free and Quantum-Safe
An anonymous credential mechanism is a set of protocols that allows users to obtain credentials from an organization and demonstrate ownership of these credentials without compromising users’ privacy. In this work, we construct the first secret-free and quantum-safe credential mechanism. -
Privacy-Preserving Post-Quantum Credentials for Digital Payments
Digital payments and decentralized systems enable the creation of new financial products and services for users. One core challenge in digital payments is the need to protect users from fraud and abuse while retaining privacy in individual transactions. We propose a pseudonymous credential scheme for use in payment systems to tackle this problem. -
Reviewing Canada’s Monetary Policy Implementation System: Does the Evolving Environment Support Maintaining a Floor System?
At the onset of the pandemic, the Bank of Canada transitioned its framework for monetary policy implementation from a corridor system to a floor system, which it has since decided to maintain. We provide a comprehensive analysis of both frameworks and assess their relative merits based on five key criteria that define a sound framework. -
How Banks Create Gridlock to Save Liquidity in Canada's Large Value Payment System
We show how participants in Canada’s new high-value payment system save liquidity by exploiting the new gridlock resolution arrangement. The findings have important implications for the design of these systems and shed light on financial institutions’ liquidity preference. -
From LVTS to Lynx: Quantitative Assessment of Payment System Transition
We quantitatively assess the changes in participants’ payment behaviour from modernizing Canada's high-value payments system to Lynx. Our analysis suggests that Lynx's liquidity-saving mechanism encourages liquidity pooling and early payments submission, resulting in improved efficiency for participants but with slightly increased payment delays. -
A central bank digital currency for offline payments
Offline functionality is a key consideration for a potential CBDC. We describe the different types of offline functionality based on their duration outside of network connection—either intermittent (for short periods) or extended (for longer periods). We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each and consider implications for end-user devices, system resilience and universal accessibility. -
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.