the best uses for emerging technologies. as an example, the federal reserve is working to improve the current system through the introduction of instant or fast payments via the fednow service. 2 the service will be designed to maintain uninterrupted processing — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year — with security features that will ensure payment integrity and data security. the target launch date is sometime in 2023. * the federal reserve is also doing its part to examine the role of new technologies. experiments with central bank digital currencies ( cbdcs ) are being conducted at the board of governors, as well as complementary efforts by the federal reserve bank of boston in collaboration with researchers at mit. in addition, a recent report from the bank for international settlements and a group of seven central banks, which includes the fed, assessed the feasibility of cbdcs in helping central banks deliver their public policy objectives. 3 relevant to today ’ s topic, one of the three key principles highlighted in the report is that a cbdc needs to coexist with cash and other types of money in a flexible and innovative payment system. 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches improvements in the global payments system will come not just from the public sector, but from the private sector as well. as today ’ s second panel, “ of lions and unicorns, ” described, the private sector has the experience and expertise to develop consumer - facing infrastructure that improves and simplifies how the public engages with the financial system. digitalization of financial services, combined with an improved consumer experience, can help increase financial inclusion, particularly in countries or areas with a large unbanked population. and the last two panels of the day, “ addressing legal barriers to cross - border payments ” and “ harmonised data to oil the cross - border payments machinery, ” highlight that improving the system must be a collaborative effort. by definition, cross - border payments involve multiple jurisdictions. so it will only be through countries working together, via all of the international forums — the group of seven, the g - 20, the cpmi, the fsb, and others — that solutions will be possible. and, finally, it is only by engaging all stakeholders — policymakers, private - sector participants, and academia — as this conference is doing, that we will achieve the improved payments ecosystem we are striving toward. the covid crisis has brought into even sharper focus the need to address the limitations

, combined with the fact that many connected participants can update the shared ledger, means that end - point security is another critical component of any successful implementation of the technology. adverse actors that can take over a participant ’ s access to the ledger remains a key security concern, as thefts of cryptographic keys in bitcoin continue to demonstrate. thus, advances in cryptography will remain a key priority to enable widespread adoption of distributed ledger technologies, along with systems for securing private keys, the management of access to private keys, and differentiated permissions for participants in the system to read and write to the ledger. recent episodes have illustrated the importance of having protocols agreed at the outset to determine whether and under what circumstances to reverse transactions once they have been recorded in a distributed master ledger. finally, it will be important that users and administrators of distributed ledger technologies can meet their responsibilities to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other key law enforcement concerns. some of the new technologies would potentially allow authorized access to certain data records in a much more efficient manner than has previously been possible. for example, distributed ledgers could be developed to collect personally identifiable information and 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches country identifiers that enable banks to identify and report on suspicious activity. it will be important that these new technological developments and their implementation perform in a safe and sound manner that is transparent and satisfies regulatory requirements. while prevention will remain the preferred approach, realistically, resiliency and recovery will also need to be high - priorities. indeed, many firms have suggested that the distributed data storage concept has the potential to increase the level of resiliency and data integrity. the basic idea is it should be harder to corrupt multiple copies of the same data simultaneously such that digital ledgers could reduce the vulnerability associated with a single point of failure. we must press firms and experts to identify the strengths and vulnerabilities of this concept, even as we all look for ways to make databases more secure and resilient. in an interesting development, some financial institutions have also begun to consider using distributed ledgers to back up critical databases and enable quick recovery from potentially virulent cyberattacks. we will be interested in whether such techniques can make new contributions to cybersecurity. overall, the public needs to have confidence that any system employing distributed ledgers will operate properly, particularly in stressed conditions, and know that when adverse scenarios do occur, there will be robust management and governance to respond effectively