THEMATIC/RESEARCH PROGRAM
PUBLICATIONS
Abstract: Consistently with the official claims, and despite limited success so far, China is gradually and continuously building financial infrastructures to promote the internationalization of the yuan. While money is a potent instrument of power, this paper supports the idea that Beijing will not throw an overnight financial big bang as it would expose its weak domestic financial system. Instead, developing a '3Cs' framework standing for convenience, confidence, and control, we prove that China: (i) capitalizes on the global importance of its production tool, (ii) interiorizes the technical expectations of the current international financial system to interoperate with it; (iii) ring-fences its domestic financial sphere from the international one to protect it and; (iv) articulates public/private domestic actors and their technologies to make the use of the yuan as seamless as possible, being ready when an alternative currency will be required, therefore collecting the fruits of the Unites States sanction policies.
Keywords: financial infrastructure; renminbi (yuan); currency internationalization; international monetary system; central bank digital currency.
Executive summary: Many facets of daily life have accelerated toward digital, largely driven by consumer, business needs and technological innovation. Substantial accomplishments among the domestic real-time payment schemes have been achieved in the past decade. Consumers and businesses have adapted to an instant turnaround when a payment is processed and the same expectations of speed and new payment features currently supported for domestic payments will naturally expand to an international level. The world’s first cross country faster payment has been commercialized, payments between Singapore and Thailand can now be processed via a faster payment rail. Funds can be transferred between the accounts of the two countries within 5 minutes, which is a remarkable milestone compared to traditional wires. Yet the same faster payment scheme cannot simply be replicated and applied to the rest of the world. To realize instant cross border payments, countries are facing challenges around costs, interoperability between systems and fulfilment of multiple regulatory requirements in different jurisdictions. Taking this opportunity, this white paper will outline some of the real-time payment (RTP) schemes that currently support cross border payments within their terms of usage or intend to allow its processing in the future. We will focus on markets that are leading the cross border payments, as well as markets that are planning to implement cross border real time payment capabilities. We will also highlight key markets that have delayed implementing cross border real time payment schemes. Additionally, this paper will list the main challenges related to the implementation and adoption of cross border payments at a large scale and indicate some of the proposed solutions and guidelines that may help to overcome these challenges. Our goal is to determine the standards that would need to be applied to have a globally connected network of real time payment schemes that work to support the need for increased speed which has derived from the evolution of global commerce. We will explore what the future will look like for cross border real time payments, while understanding the business impact to traditional correspondent banking and how the current network will have to adapt to fit the need for faster payments.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Abstract: This paper presents a novel framework based on the French institutionalist theory that views money as an institution rooted in social consensus, granting an instrumental role to the monetary users. The framework introduces a double opposition between symbolic versus infrastructural money and public versus private money. Mobilizing these newly introduced concepts and through a systemic empirical study, the paper bridges monetary theory and facts, analyzing the power structures, ideological influences, and beliefs that actively shape the global financial architecture. The study explores the mechanisms that facilitate domestic and cross-border circulation of money and assesses from a prospective angle the impact of ongoing changes, such as the development of CBDCs and Instant Payment or North/South asymmetries within the inherited USD-centered financial architecture. Overall, this paper sheds light on the current state of the global financial system and its underlying dynamics.
Keywords: Money; Technology; Payment Infrastructure; Global financial system; public/private sectors.
Abstract: The Eurodollars and the Chinese yuan are two currencies on the rise. Introducing concepts of symbolic and infrastructural monies and highlighting the role of monetary intermediaries, this paper focuses on the methods and motives developed by Washington and Beijing to internationalize their currencies using an IPE approach. Washington and Beijing structured two articulated money ecosystems and payment infrastructures to meet global liquidity needs. The Eurodollars appear as the result of a public/private interests-oriented iteration through what Strange (1996) calls triangular diplomacy. It has been supported by the UK-US Special relationship while London was willing to protect a bit of its financial centrality despite a sinking pound. The international yuan process is alternatively a State centered methodical approach structured around the "convenience, confidence, and control" framework (Berthou and Ponsot 2022) leveraging the standards of the existing monetary system and capitalizing on the global importance of the Chinese production tool. Unlike the post-WWII context, China cannot rely on a scuttling of the current currency leader. Maintaining the USD as a dominant currency is a sine-qua-non condition to protect the US economic model by deflecting the adjustment burden on external partners. Beijing's current ambitions, facing Washington's need to keep its currency global, paves the way toward further monetary fragmentation risk from a sanction-free angle.
Keywords: China; international monetary system; Eurodollars; renminbi (yuan); currency internationalization.
CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS
PhD THESIS (2022 - exp. 2024)
MASTER THESIS
- Monetary international political economy (institutionalism, money, and sovereignty).
- International finance, development economics, and payment infrastructures (dollarization, international monetary system, domestic and regional payment infrastructures, financial inclusion, payment, and development).
- Payment infrastructures and monetary innovation (digitalization of payments, crypto assets and decentralized finance, fintech, regulatory evolutions).
PUBLICATIONS
- Monetary innovations by China to actively promote the internationalization of the renminbi with Jean-François Ponsot. Accepted by the Journal of Economic Issues (to be published in 2024).
Abstract: Consistently with the official claims, and despite limited success so far, China is gradually and continuously building financial infrastructures to promote the internationalization of the yuan. While money is a potent instrument of power, this paper supports the idea that Beijing will not throw an overnight financial big bang as it would expose its weak domestic financial system. Instead, developing a '3Cs' framework standing for convenience, confidence, and control, we prove that China: (i) capitalizes on the global importance of its production tool, (ii) interiorizes the technical expectations of the current international financial system to interoperate with it; (iii) ring-fences its domestic financial sphere from the international one to protect it and; (iv) articulates public/private domestic actors and their technologies to make the use of the yuan as seamless as possible, being ready when an alternative currency will be required, therefore collecting the fruits of the Unites States sanction policies.
Keywords: financial infrastructure; renminbi (yuan); currency internationalization; international monetary system; central bank digital currency.
- Cross-border faster payments with Caroline Brown, Bruno Campos, Aaron Jennings, Zakir Khanmammadov, Rufus Kin Yan Lam, and Yvonne Lim, BAFT Future Leaders White Paper, May 2021.
Executive summary: Many facets of daily life have accelerated toward digital, largely driven by consumer, business needs and technological innovation. Substantial accomplishments among the domestic real-time payment schemes have been achieved in the past decade. Consumers and businesses have adapted to an instant turnaround when a payment is processed and the same expectations of speed and new payment features currently supported for domestic payments will naturally expand to an international level. The world’s first cross country faster payment has been commercialized, payments between Singapore and Thailand can now be processed via a faster payment rail. Funds can be transferred between the accounts of the two countries within 5 minutes, which is a remarkable milestone compared to traditional wires. Yet the same faster payment scheme cannot simply be replicated and applied to the rest of the world. To realize instant cross border payments, countries are facing challenges around costs, interoperability between systems and fulfilment of multiple regulatory requirements in different jurisdictions. Taking this opportunity, this white paper will outline some of the real-time payment (RTP) schemes that currently support cross border payments within their terms of usage or intend to allow its processing in the future. We will focus on markets that are leading the cross border payments, as well as markets that are planning to implement cross border real time payment capabilities. We will also highlight key markets that have delayed implementing cross border real time payment schemes. Additionally, this paper will list the main challenges related to the implementation and adoption of cross border payments at a large scale and indicate some of the proposed solutions and guidelines that may help to overcome these challenges. Our goal is to determine the standards that would need to be applied to have a globally connected network of real time payment schemes that work to support the need for increased speed which has derived from the evolution of global commerce. We will explore what the future will look like for cross border real time payments, while understanding the business impact to traditional correspondent banking and how the current network will have to adapt to fit the need for faster payments.
WORK IN PROGRESS
- Theoretical and technical study of the link between money and monetary infrastructure.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel framework based on the French institutionalist theory that views money as an institution rooted in social consensus, granting an instrumental role to the monetary users. The framework introduces a double opposition between symbolic versus infrastructural money and public versus private money. Mobilizing these newly introduced concepts and through a systemic empirical study, the paper bridges monetary theory and facts, analyzing the power structures, ideological influences, and beliefs that actively shape the global financial architecture. The study explores the mechanisms that facilitate domestic and cross-border circulation of money and assesses from a prospective angle the impact of ongoing changes, such as the development of CBDCs and Instant Payment or North/South asymmetries within the inherited USD-centered financial architecture. Overall, this paper sheds light on the current state of the global financial system and its underlying dynamics.
Keywords: Money; Technology; Payment Infrastructure; Global financial system; public/private sectors.
- How and why to make a currency global? An infrastructural comparative study of the Eurodollar and the international Yuan cases with Jean-François Ponsot.
Abstract: The Eurodollars and the Chinese yuan are two currencies on the rise. Introducing concepts of symbolic and infrastructural monies and highlighting the role of monetary intermediaries, this paper focuses on the methods and motives developed by Washington and Beijing to internationalize their currencies using an IPE approach. Washington and Beijing structured two articulated money ecosystems and payment infrastructures to meet global liquidity needs. The Eurodollars appear as the result of a public/private interests-oriented iteration through what Strange (1996) calls triangular diplomacy. It has been supported by the UK-US Special relationship while London was willing to protect a bit of its financial centrality despite a sinking pound. The international yuan process is alternatively a State centered methodical approach structured around the "convenience, confidence, and control" framework (Berthou and Ponsot 2022) leveraging the standards of the existing monetary system and capitalizing on the global importance of the Chinese production tool. Unlike the post-WWII context, China cannot rely on a scuttling of the current currency leader. Maintaining the USD as a dominant currency is a sine-qua-non condition to protect the US economic model by deflecting the adjustment burden on external partners. Beijing's current ambitions, facing Washington's need to keep its currency global, paves the way toward further monetary fragmentation risk from a sanction-free angle.
Keywords: China; international monetary system; Eurodollars; renminbi (yuan); currency internationalization.
CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS
- Lille Postkeynesian Conference 2023: Economic possibilities for our grandchildren… 90 years later [Lille ; 06 – 08 December]. «Theoretical and technical study of the existing link between money and monetary infrastructures ».
- YSI & Leeds University Business School, Money in Open Economies [Leeds; 12 September]. «Theoretical and technical study of the existing link between money and monetary infrastructures ».
- XIIth Congress of the French Association of Political Economy [Paris, 04 July – 07 July]. « How and why to make a currency global? An infrastructural comparative study of the Eurodollar and the international Yuan cases » (article with Jean-François Ponsot).
- Citibank Financial Institutions Global Conference 2023: Enabling the future of commerce [Athens; 14 May – 16 May]. « How ready are Banks for the evolution of payments », Conference panelist representing Société Générale as payment infrastructure and network management expert.
- Bank of Finland, BOFIT Conference: Chinese path to modernization [Helsinki ; 24 – 25 April]. « Monetary innovations by China to actively promote the internationalization of the yuan » (article with Jean-François Ponsot).
- GloCoBank Conference: The Evolution of the Global Payments System [Oxford, St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford ; 23 – 24 March]. « How and why to make a currency global? An infrastructural comparative study of the Eurodollar and the international Yuan cases » (article with Jean-François Ponsot).
- BAFT 2023 Europe Bank to Bank Forum [London, 24 January – 25 January]. « Network Management and its Evolution in Permacrisis », Speaker representing Société Générale as payment infrastructure and network management expert.
- The Future of China’s economic model amidst increasing domestic and foreign challenges, European Central Bank, International Relations Committee China Expert Network Workshop 2022 [Frankfurt, 16 December]. Non-presenting participant as Chinese payment infrastructure expert.
- The Future of Monetary Political Economy [Grenoble, 06 October – 07 October]. Member of the organizing committee.
- XIth Congress of the French Association of Political Economy [Amiens, 28 June – 01 July]. « Monetary innovations by China to actively promote the internationalization of the yuan » (article with Jean-François Ponsot).
- Alter-Crypto 2022, crypto currencies and other digital alternative currencies [Lyon, 27 June – 29 June]. « Monetary innovations by China to actively promote the internationalization of the yuan » (article with Jean-François Ponsot).
- Monies and ecological transition [Bordeaux, 9 June – 10 June]. « Monetary innovations by China to actively promote the internationalization of the yuan » (article with Jean-François Ponsot).
- Universwiftnet [Paris, 9 June]. « Central Bank Digital Currencies : a new instrument dedicated to monetary trust ? », representing Société Générale as payment infrastructure expert (with Isabelle Poussigues and Geneviève Douhet).
- 2021 Virtual Global Annual Meeting [online, 7 June]. « Cross-border faster payments » (with Caroline Brown, Bruno Campos, Aaron Jennings, Zakir Khanmammadov, Rufus Kin Yan Lam, and Yvonne Lim).
PhD THESIS (2022 - exp. 2024)
- Three essays in international political economy on payment infrastructures, Study of a cornerstone of the international monetary system under the supervision of Jean-François Ponsot (Pacte, Université Grenoble Alpes) and Massimo Amato (Bocconi University).
MASTER THESIS
- State weakness in Sub-Saharan Africa (2020) under the supervision of Pierre Berthaud (CREG, Université Grenoble Alpes).
- The internationalization of the yuan, a process driven by the Chinese State (2019) under the supervision of Laetitia Blanc (Université Grenoble Alpes).
- Inputs, consequences and limits – Analysis of a process at the core of the current financial system (2016) under the supervision of Jean-François Regnard (KEDGE Business School).
