Hurin Nawawi 00:00:33 Hello, my name is Hurin and I am part of the P.I.T. Exchange production team. And today I’m going to share snippets from our top five most streamed episodes of 2025. So across this year, you tune in for conversations on everything from cash and payments, resilience to digital currencies and emerging technologies. And these were the ones that really stood out. So a big thank you to our guests for sharing their insights and to you for listening in throughout the year. All right, let’s get into it. We will start with the conversation around cash and its digital twin. One of the topics that really caught attention this year. Here’s a highlight from that discussion.
Wolfram Seidemann 00:01:15 Cash is today the only inclusive system that is available. but of course, when it comes to digital payments, as you said, that can be the on ramp to further products and services. and I think here we, we, we have to be careful because in the digital space, it’s also about data. And data can be used in positive ways, but it can also be used in asymmetric ways where and we have to make sure that that we are getting that right. Because think about a commercial bank that is issuing a CBDC wallet to unbanked people. Allowing the bank, with the consent of the user, to collect data that helps the bank to create a credit profile for the user that can actually, in fact, be the on ramp into financial services like microcredit or other products and services.
Hurin Nawawi 00:02:25 Next up, we head to South Africa, where the conversation focused on the smart economy and how payments are evolving on the ground.
Pearl Kgalegi 00:02:34 Smart economy. We are very intentional around it in South Africa that it will never be a cashless society.
Pearl Kgalegi 00:02:46 We understand our shortcomings. We understand that we’ve got a lot of areas that are rural where network might not necessarily be there, And therefore we have to cater for that. The elderly, we have those that are they, they’ve got like the blind. The visually impaired that we need to cater for and therefore a cashless society is not what we are striving for in South Africa. Hence, we talk about the smart economy, rather talking, helping the society to understand members of the public, to understand the convenience of moving, but also broadly financial inclusion, that once they are in the system, these are the benefits that they will get.
Hurin Nawawi 00:03:40 After that, a standard discussion on cash in Canada and how it continues to play a role in a changing payments landscape.
Maureen Carroll 00:03:48 We see cash here for the longer term in Canada. As long as there is cash, we will have a role to play. And from a resilience point of view, it’s really important that we, as the central bank, maintain a resilient posture with two centres that can operate and back each other up and have equipment and software that we can rely on.
Maureen Carroll 00:04:06 And, you know, we know that as things evolve on the commercial side going forward, you know, we may want to think about our role differently. We want to make sure that as a system wide, we have the resilience in place and and we can play a part in that. So it really for not just for external, but even internally inside the bank, it is a signal that we believe that we have this role to play for the long run, and we need to be prepared to do so.
Hurin Nawawi 00:04:32 The fourth highlight looks at cross-border payments in the Middle East and beyond.
Mehdi Manaa 00:04:37 First, we are absolutely right that technology is not is not a problem. Technology has always been an enabler. we you know, I very often have this debate in my different organization. I had the same one when I was the ECB, about to, to what extent we should, disclose our design, our technical documents, whether we, make them fully public or we keep them secret because we might be copied or, see others using them in another context or in the wrong context.
Mehdi Manaa 00:05:15 I have always been in favor of, full transparency, because the real value added that we bring is not that one. It’s not the technology is, as you rightly say, the ability of, putting the right stakeholders around the table and then the ability of driving them towards a common purpose and the common objective. it’s not always easy. So the, the, the dynamic, or let me say it’s always difficult. It’s always difficult to align interest and to, to have different type of stakeholders with possibly different background, different histories, collaborating towards the common objectives. It takes a bit of time, but when the the interest becomes more visible and more tangible, we see that the forces managed to align, more, more easily. I would say, special recipe. No, it’s apart from being perseverance and also, a lot of, let’s say, diplomacy and listening and understanding, trying to, building a consensus. It’s a keyword. we can never have a better solution, but, we cannot have the aim for a best solution, let’s say.
Mehdi Manaa 00:06:33 But so consensus means that we need to to, favor collaboration first and put forward the common interest before the specific ones. It takes a bit of time. but, the the success or the the the perspective of the success is the biggest reporter. So many of these initiatives remain at the drawing stage at the drawing board.
Hurin Nawawi 00:07:00 And finally, we wrap things up with a conversation on rethinking payments online, offline and cash.
Joachim Samuelsson 00:07:07 And then this morning I said, I know I sent it to you, Sean. And this is what I learned in Bangkok, is we can actually even rethink cash payments so we can do offline payments. We can rethink that. We can rethink online payments, but we can rethink also cash payments, because one of the biggest pain points is change a lot of merchants that it’s actually a big logistical problem. But every day the merchants needs to stock up on change because you don’t know if the it’s a big guy from Texas with a big hat comes with $1,000 bill and and or I want my change and then and then.
Joachim Samuelsson 00:07:43 So you have to sort of be prepared. But if you can pay back digitally that would be a beauty.
Hurin Nawawi 00:07:51 And that wraps up our top five most streamed episodes of 2025. Big thanks to our amazing guests for the fantastic conversations, and of course, to all of you for tuning in. So if you’re curious about the full stories behind these highlights, just head over to our website where you can catch all five episodes. And while you’re there, just, you know, feel free to check out the rest of the Exchange Podcast library, too. Whether you’re just revisiting your favorite moment or hearing it for the first time, this is a quick look back at what really made 2025 special for P.IT. Exchange. Thank you and see you next year.
