PolicyScope data use cases extend well past the volatility trading and investment advisory context. Here is how one senior strategist used our DCVS (Digital Currency Policy Volatility Signals) data last week to spot a very significant shift in payments policy at the BIS. The move illuminates that crypto policy and CBDC policy geopolitics on display extend well past the US election context. He and his team are ready for very different conversations with their counterparts based on what he found while navigating DCVS data on the PolicyScope dashboard.
Background
The policy strategist works at a large firm actively engaged in cross-border payments. Confidentiality prohibits us from telling you whether he is at a crypto company, a payments provider, or a financial institution. But given the role that crypto is playing in the US election this year, let's just say he is working overtime.
Policy regarding payments systems, crypto, stablecoins, and CBDCs all impact his work. A more friendly policy environment for crypto is expected in the United States. Policymakers globally are also leaning towards a range of asset tokenization initiatives. The velocity of the policy process is expected to increase after the election, but that does NOT mean things are quiet right now.
The last two weeks have seen the strategist trying to be in multiple places at the same time as he follows the policy cycle.
Significant events that made policy regarding digital currencies included:
The IMF/World Bank Annual meetings in Washington DC.
The G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Washington DC
The BRICS summit (which now includes Iran) in Kazan, Russia which featured tirades against a weaponized dollar and renewed effort to build an alternative payment system to avoid financial sanctions.
The Hong Kong FinTech Week sessions.
Banco Santander's International Banking Conference in Madrid.
The policy strategist based in New York is expected to be on top of all these events (and more!) without traveling to every session so that he can provide his company's senior leadership with solid forward guidance regarding risks and opportunities before, during, and after the election.
Using the PolicyScope Dashboard
The policy analyst spends roughly 15-25 minutes each morning taking a not-so-random walk through the PolicyScope Dashboard. The dashboard updates daily, so he sees all the policy moves that occurred in the last 24 hours while he was in meetings. It enables him to be everywhere all at once.
Some sample screenshots:
The dashboard includes an interactive Gantt Chart that delivers immediate access to the underlying documents. It took him 17 minutes to find a stunning policy shift by the BIS.
The strategic analyst subscribes to CoinDesk but not The Banker, which are the only two entities that reported on the shift. But he missed the CoinDesk story because he was in meetings when the story broke. When he was ready to focus on Friday morning, the PolicyScope DCVS dashboard was at the ready, delivering the pulse of public policy to his fingertips.
The Information You Missed
While speaking at the Santander International Banking Conference in Madrid, the General Manager of the BIS announced that the BIS is leaving one of the first cross-border digital currency payments platforms that it created four years ago. The project in question (mBridge) creates a multicurrency distributed ledger to implement instant cross-border payments among central banks and financial institutions. The original participants were: Thailand and the UAE.
He implied that the reason for the shift involved potential use of the platform to evade sanctions.
Look at the language data:
"The BIS is leaving that project, not because it was a failure and not because of political considerations but instead because we have been involved for four years and it is at a level where the partners can carry it on by themselves. That has happened already with other projects. At the same time, I have to say that mBridge is not mature enough to start operating; it is many years away from that...We at the BIS – I think this is an opportunity to set record straight – we always try to be good global citizen. And the BIS does not operate with any countries, nor can its products be used by any countries that are subject to sanctions. This will continue to be the case. And all central bank members are in this mindset that we need to be observant of sanctions and whatever products we put together should not be a conduit to violate sanctions."
Let that sink in for a minute. In June of this year (just four months ago!) the BIS announced that the project had reached the minimum viable product stage and would be expanding beyond the 31 observing members.
The Strategic Advantage, backed by data
We don't know exactly what the strategic analyst did with this information on Friday. We would never ask and they would never tell us. But since our team includes someone who once was a global strategist and advocate, we know that the list of options for what to do next includes:
Sharing the information with the public policy team and asking for analysis based on other initiatives.
Notify senior management of a sharp shift in policy stance at the BIS that could trigger a more challenging near-term policy environment for crypto, stablecoins, and other payments processes.
Reaching out immediately to the team at the BIS to ask questions about whether other BIS projects are at risk for similar disengagement.
Evaluating the firm's participation in other BIS projects to determine whether those projects might also be at risk for a shift in stance or support.
Sharing the information with other internal strategists that track global macro and geopolitical developments.
Since the announcement was made in a public forum, it is immediately actionable. A strategist at a firm that includes trading desks would share the information also with portfolio managers that trade crypto and FX as well as portfolio managers that manage positions linked to global macro issues. The BIS was created over 100 years ago precisely to facilitate payments among central banks. Any pull back from that original mandate on the grounds of potential sanctions evasion now would suggest that existing geopolitical tensions are likely to continue ratcheting up as violence escalates globally.
Notifying the compliance team of a more forward posture regarding sanctions compliance by the BIS. The point here is not that the firm is subject to compliance-related monitoring by the BIS. The point is that a hardening posture regarding sanctions evasion that spills over into the BIS context could be a forward indicator of more stringent compliance oversight by the relevant authorities to which the firm is responsible.
Next Steps
What would you do with this kind of information?
Start your pilot of the DCVS data dashboard today.
BCMstrategy, Inc. delivers industry-defining quantitative and language data to help power advanced decision intelligence in capital markets, advocacy, and strategy consulting. The award-winning patented process provides multifactor time series data and structured language data designed from the beginning to support a wide range of AI-powered predictive analytics solutions.