The IMF’s Spring Meetings this year saw the announcement of the organization’s own, “international central bank digital currency” called the Universal Monetary Unit (UMU, aka Unicoin). The IMF said in a statement that UMU functions like a CBDC and is a legal and global money commodity. The purpose of this particular iteration of a CBDCs is to make sure banking regulations are enforced, as well as to protect “the financial integrity of the international banking system.” This currency will be used by banks via SWIFT codes and bank accounts linked to a UMU digital wallet. The scheme is supposed to allow for digital cross-border payments modeled after SWIFT, and promises best wholesale exchange rates of settlement currencies and real-time settlement, “while bypassing the correspondent banking system.”
