Central bankers have always been protective of the currencies they keep. Stability is a top priority, which has made them rather cautious about solutions that threaten that position. Yet, lately, they’ve thrown that caution to the wind as more regulators actively start experimenting with the idea of cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology. In a Daily Maverick analysis, Ruan Jooste notes that even the SA Reserve Bank is warming up to the idea of digital currency. And it has asked the industry to help it come up with the best ideas. ‘A report published in March 2019 by the World Economic Forum states that monetary authorities, perhaps surprisingly so, are some of the first adopters of distributed ledger technology (DLT). The waters of blockchain are being tested at different levels though, and according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), those actively investigating possibilities are all looking to win efficiencies, enhance security and find ways to include more people in the financial system on their banking and payments platforms.’ Jooste points out that SA’s Project Khokha has two honourable mentions in the WEF report. ‘It relates how in 2019 the SA Reserve Bank successfully executed payments over its wholesale payment network via a DLT network. The trial run included all the retail banks – and the Reserve Bank wanted them all to gain practical experience on aspects of using blockchain in a realistic test environment where different deployment models were used. It also wanted to better understand how the SA Multiple Option Settlement system would integrate with a DLT. The system is the Reserve Bank’s automated interbank network, which allows local banks to settle their obligations among one another in real time.’