via axios

The big picture: The Fed and central banks around the world are responsible for overseeing and stabilizing the world’s money supply, but most are at risk of being left behind in this new phase. 1.7 billion people have no access to digital payments, cross-border transactions carry an average transaction cost of 7%, and even sending money within a country is cost-prohibitive for people without bank accounts, Libra's Marcus says. "The poorer you are, the more you’re paying for financial services." What's happening: While a future without cash may seem distant in the U.S. — where more people write checks than use digital payments and there is a rising demand for dollars — the rest of the world is going there. Countries like Kenya and India are already operating digital currency networks, and the People's Bank of China says it will release a digital currency this year. Estimates show Chinese payment platforms Alipay and WeChat Pay handled $37 trillion in mobile payments last year, Fed governor Lael Brainard said Wednesday at a symposium on digital currencies held by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Yet the Fed is being "exceptionally cautious" in its possible development of a U.S. digital currency, Brainard, the Fed's leading financial authority — and a former undersecretary at the Treasury Department — told Axios during Wednesday's event. A digital currency would have "profound implications for monetary policy transmission and potentially for financial stability," she said. "All of those things require a lot of careful consideration."