Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Eastern Caribbean dollar goes digital, a help for unbanked

Friday, April 2, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Economic Security

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Eastern Caribbean has created its own form of digital currency meant to help speed transactions and serve people without bank accounts.

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank said its “DCash” is the first such blockchain-based currency introduced by any of the world’s currency unions, though some individual nations have similar existing systems.

It became available Wednesday in four island nations under a yearlong pilot program: St. Lucia, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis.

“(It) is a milestone in the history of monetary instruments,” said Bitt CEO Brian Popelka during a press conference broadcast online.

DCash was created by Barbados-based fintech company Bitt in partnership with the central bank. Unlike cryptocurrencies, it is issued by an official central bank and has a fixed value, tied to the existing Eastern Caribbean dollar used across much of the region.

The system allows users even without bank accounts — but with a smartphone — to use a downloaded app and make payments via a QR code. Those without bank accounts would go to a previously approved agent or nonbanking financial institution who would verify a person’s information and then approve a “DCash” wallet. That person would then go to a supermarket or other store and give the cashier physical cash which would then be deposited as digital currency in their wallet, Bitt spokesman Chris Burnett told The Associated Press.

In addition, there are limits on the amount of money people can send via DCash, there are no plans for now of integrating credit cards and interest does not apply to the digital currency.

While many in the Eastern Caribbean cheered the historic move, some experts worry that digital currency issued by smaller countries could end up being used as a conduit for illicit activities, including terrorism financing and money laundering, said Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University.

“That skepticism is waning as more central banks get into the act, and as central banks around the world face the inevitability of the declining use of physical cash,” he said.

He noted that the Bahamas last year became the first country to roll out its digital currency nationwide, and that the Marshall Islands is considering its own cryptocurrency. For smaller countries, “there is more at stake” in part because many people remain unbanked, he said.

“That’s why I think small countries are being more aggressive about this, simply because they need to,” Prasad said.

Officials said that by September at the latest, the digital currency will be available in Anguilla, Dominica, Montserrat and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which form part of the eight island economies under the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.

The project aims to see a 50% reduction in the use of physical cash by 2025, said Sharmyn Powell, chairperson of the bank’s fintech working group.

“It’s safer, faster and cheaper,” Powell said.

Central Bank Governor Timothy N.J. Antoine said he envisions farmers, fishermen, small business owners, single mothers and people without bank accounts, among others, using the digital currency.

“Payments are still too slow and too expensive,” Antoine said of the current system. “We heard you, and we have delivered.”

Antoine said it is harder to steal digital cash and said it’s a safe way to make payments while avoiding contact during the pandemic.

One Eastern Caribbean dollar is currently equivalent to 37 U.S. cents. All Eastern Caribbean notes feature Queen Elizabeth II of England as head of the Commonwealth.

The project comes more than two months after the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Swedish Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank created a group to study whether they should issue digital currencies.

The Swedish central bank already has commissioned a pilot program. Meanwhile, China rolled out a digital currency in four cities in April 2020 as part of a pilot program that has since expanded to more than two dozen cities.

However, Lee Rainers, a fintech law and policy professor at Duke University, said it remains to be seen whether central bank digital currency is the future.

“I approach it with a sense of skepticism because this technology has been around for over 10 years now but has not taken off as a broad medium of exchange,” he said.

Photo: Metrocreative

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/eastern-caribbean-dollar-goes-digital-a-help-for-unbanked/2021/04/01/2b08c8fa-9324-11eb-aadc-af78701a30ca_story.html

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