In our last faiVLive webinar with Jesse McWaters, Head of Global Digital Public Policy at Mastercard, we demystified digital money systems and discussed what blockchains are, the differences between mobile money, digital currency and cryptocurrency, and the possibilities that digitization opens.
But an hour was not enough, so we decided to continue the conversation in a Part 2. Tim and Jesse discussed stablecoins and how they differ from Central Bank Digital Currencies, how “smart” smart contracts really are, the features and bugs of rules-based software to regulate transactions, the NFT ecosystem and potential applications in financial inclusion, the possibility of blockchain easing remittance processes, and a lot more. We also heard from audience members Martha Bowen, who is the Indonesia Country Director at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and Tamara Cook, CEO of FSD Kenya, on these conversations in the context of Indonesia and Kenya.
Some useful links and resources, listed below, came up in our discussion. You can also watch the full webinar recording on our YouTube channel here.
“Business Rapper was Bad at Bitcoin Laundering” Bloomberg article by Matt Levine
Tresse McMillan Cottom’s series for the New York Times
Finally, we have some exciting webinars coming up soon on topics related to financial inclusion, digitalization, poverty and development. If you’re not already subscribed to the faiV, add in your email address here and we’ll let you know when the dates are set:
April: Digital and Financial Literacy
May: The Behavior of Small Firms, based on our Small Firm Diaries financial diaries project
July: Insights into the Financial Lives of Platform Workers, based on Dvara Research’s financial diaries project
August: Insights from our research on Microfinance Digitization in the Northern Triangle