The IMF warned about the monopolization of the cryptocurrency market by payment giants

Experts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned of the risk of a rapid emergence of monopolies or oligopolies in the circulation of central bank digital currencies (Central Bank Digital Currencies, CBDC). This is stated in the June report of the fund “Lessons from Asian Central Banks in Adapting Digital Currencies”. Since the existing large payment services will be responsible for the transfers of national crypto-money, they will be able, due to their scale and processing of the data array, to gain competitive advantages already at the stage of the emergence of a new market.

IMF experts cite as an example the experience of Asian countries, where the risk of monopolization has already materialized. In particular, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore – where it is allowed to use some types of private cryptocurrencies or tokens. In these countries, the transfer markets in digital currencies are occupied by several large companies. In China, these are WeChat Pay (41%) and AliPay (49%), in Indonesia – Ovo (38%), ShopeePay (16%) and Gopay (13%), in Thailand 53% of the market is controlled by TrueMoney, and the South Asian GrabPay controls 38 and 35% of the market in Malaysia and Singapore, respectively.