REGIONAL OFFICE FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC (OAP)

Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar

New Challenges in Digital Money and Payments

As technological advances continue to reshape the payments landscape, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and global financial platforms on cross-border payments are at the forefront of this evolution. They offer unprecedented opportunities to reduce costs and increase speed, accessibility and transparency of transactions across borders, but pose significant challenges, including the need for robust regulatory frameworks and international cooperation.
The IMF's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific hosted a seminar on new challenges in digital money and payments, featuring two guest speakers from the Monetary and Capital Markets Department. The seminar highlighted the latest chapters of the IMF CBDC Virtual Handbook and insights into the development of cross-border payments, including global financial platforms to share cutting-edge knowledge and foster regional dialogue on the future of payments.

Agenda:

*There will be no specific Q&A sessions during the seminar.

Speaker bios:
Session 1

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    Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli is the Division Chief of the Payments, Currencies, and Infrastructure division at the IMF. His work focuses on digital currencies and payments, monetary policy, foreign exchange interventions, modelling, and central banking operations and communication. Prior to joining the IMF, Mr. Mancini-Griffoli was a senior economist in the Research and Monetary Policy Division of the Swiss National Bank, where he advised the Board on quarterly monetary policy decisions. He spent prior years in the private sector, at Goldman Sachs, the Boston Consulting Group, and technology startups in the Silicon Valley. He holds a PhD from the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and prior degrees from the London School of Economics and Stanford University.

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    Ryan Rizaldy is the Director of Payment System Policy Department at Bank Indonesia, in charge of managing strategic payment system policy group projects, including Indonesia Payment System Blueprint 2024, Nexus Project, Indonesia Payment System Blueprint 2030 and Project Garuda (Indonesian CBDC or Digital Rupiah). He previously served as Externally Finance Appointee at Payments, Currency and Financial Market Infrastructure Division of International Monetary Fund (IMF), and had an extensive career at the monetary policy department of Bank Indonesia. He holds M.Sc. in Policy Economics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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    Hiromi Yamaoka is the Board Director of Future Corporation and the Head of Future Institute of Research. He is now the Chairperson of the Digital Currency Forum, which consists of around 100 leading companies in Japan. In previous roles, he served as the Director General of the Markets Dept. and the Payment and Settlement Systems Dept of the Bank of Japan. He also served as the Member of the Basel Committee and the Alternate Executive Director for Japan at the IMF. He holds LL.B. from University of Tokyo and LL.M. from University of California at Berkeley.

  Session 2

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    Tobias Adrian is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of IMF. In this capacity, he leads the IMF’s work on financial sector surveillance, monetary and macroprudential policies, digital money, financial regulation, debt management, and climate finance. He also oversees capacity building activities in IMF member countries with regard to the supervision of financial systems, monetary and exchange rate regimes, central bank digital currency, and debt management. Prior to joining the IMF, he was a Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Associate Director of the Research and Statistics Group. He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MSc from the London School of Economics.

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    Kentaro Ogata, Deputy Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, assumed the current position in July 2023. As finance deputy’s deputy (acting), he oversees G7 and G20 matters. He also served as Chair of G7 Digital Payment Expert Group under the Japanese Presidency in 2023. He worked twice at the IMF (Fiscal Affairs Department) from 2001 to 2005 and from 2010 to 2013, where he served as fiscal economist in country teams, participated in technical assistance missions. He has extensive experience in international tax issues, covering domestic legislations, bilateral tax treaties and multilateral discussions, particularly on OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project. He holds a Bachelor of Law (LLB) from the University of Tokyo (1992) and an MBA from University of Maryland (1996).

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      Naoto Shimoda is a Deputy Director-General in the Payment and Settlement Systems Department of the Bank of Japan. He leads the Bank's work to modernize wholesale payments and cross-border payments using new technologies as well as represents the Bank in international fora, including the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures and the group of seven central banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on CBDC. Since he joined the BOJ in 1992, he has also served as Head of Division for Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Chief Representative for APAC region, and a Director of International Financial Affairs at Japan’s Ministry of Finance. He studied law at Hitotsubashi University and computer science at Harvard University.