Finance Monthly - January 2022

Back in 2019, IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde remarked that cryptocurrencies were ‘’clearly shaking the [banking] system”. Pow- ered by blockchain, financial institutions such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs were experimenting with the technology at the time. Since then, the former has launched its own blockchain initiative system called Onyx, while Goldman Sachs co-led the first public digital issuance on Ethereum public blockchain for the European Investment Bank. Perhaps most strikingly though, major powers like Russia and China have introduced their own digital currencies since Lagarde’s statement, signalling a potentially seismic and irreversible shift towards blockchain-based payments, particularly for those taken across borders. But how exactly does this technology work and why are financial institutions and countries alike seemingly so eager to move towards it? How Blockchain is Shaking the Global Payments System Finance Monthly. F i nanc i a l Innov a t i on & F i nTech 59