Martin Etheridge is Senior Vice President for product development in Mastercard’s Digital Assets and Blockchain business. He leads Mastercard’s future product strategy for blockchain and digital assets, including CBDC. Prior to joining Mastercard Martin spent more than 20 years in the public sector, holding a variety of Senior Leadership positions in banking and insurance regulation, as well as at the Bank of England. In particular, Martin led the Bank of England’s currency operation, including leading its work on digital currencies between 2014 and 2019.
Roundtable Room 1 (Level 2)
Decoding Digital Assets and Payments
In the past year, arguments have been had, points made and sides chosen between Teams Banking and Crypto.
Team Crypto threw down the gauntlet in the first Oxford-style debate we held at Point Zero Forum last year, lauding the real-life implementations and impact stablecoins have had in expanding financial inclusion and heralding an age of internet-scale composable and programmable money. In the same breath, they highlighted deposit tokens' limitations in addressing the last mile and expanding financial security on a global scale.
On the other side of the table, Team Banking countered by underscoring the limited assets stablecoins are constrained by, stating instead the ability of tokenised deposits to enable efficient transactions and support a wide range of financial industry use cases safely.
Observers then gave both teams credit for their arguments; but Team Crypto gained a slight edge during a second debate at the Singapore FinTech Festival later in the year, winning the audience's popular vote. This is a not-to-be-missed Grand Finale to the Digital Currency Trilogy.
Attendees who wish to familiarise themselves with the topic may refer to the reference materials below.
- Stablecoins or Tokenised Deposits
- Digital Currency Showdown: Stablecoins Vs Tokenised Deposits