Chief Executive Officer Currency Technology, Giesecke+Devrient
Wolfram Seidemann has been Chief Executive Officer of Giesecke+Devrient Currency Technology since July 2017. As an Executive Committee member of the Giesecke+Devrient Group, he holds the responsibility for overseeing the Public Currency activities, which encompasses the Physical Banknote business as well as the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) business of Giesecke+Devrient advance52.
Prior to this, Wolfram held a number of executive management positions as Group Executive Banknote at Giesecke+Devrient, Chairman of the Management Board of Papierfabrik Louisenthal, and Head of Sales and Marketing of Banknote Processing Systems worldwide.
Wolfram joined Giesecke+Devrient as Head of International Research and Development Chipcard in 1999 and has served since in various management positions in Munich, Singapore, Taiwan, and New Delhi.
His background is in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration. He holds a PhD in Innovation Management from the Technical University of Munich, where he began his career as Head of R&D and Innovation Management of the Economics Department, later working as an industry consultant in the field.
Since November 2022, Wolfram has been serving as a Board Member of the International Currency Association (ICA), an organization dedicated to promoting and representing the perspectives of the currency industry. Prior to his current role, he held the position of Chairman from 2018 to 2022.
Roundtable Room 1, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Level 4
Invite-Only
Currently, several new forms of digital money are invented through tokenization. Banks are exploring tokenized deposits, or Commercial Bank Money Tokens (CBMT), as a way to modernise their offerings. However, much of this innovation is happening outside their direct control, often spearheaded by fintech players and driven by clients demanding solutions like stablecoins for cross-border payments. Additionally, central banks and regulators are beginning to enforce support for digital currencies such as retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), as seen with MAS on the pilot use of wholesale CBDCs in Singapore and the European Central Bank’s initiatives in Europe.
As of September 2024, three countries have successfully launched retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), while 35 countries are currently in the pilot phase of their CBDC projects. Additionally, 12 countries are engaged in research to explore the feasibility and implications of CBDCs, and 13 countries are actively developing their digital currencies.
Emerging tokenized forms of money, especially those running on blockchain, operate fundamentally differently from traditional currencies. We have seen new forms of digital fiat money being invented through tokenization running on chain, including central bank money, commercial bank money, regulated stablecoins, and money market funds. These new kinds of money will technically be managed on different flavours of distributed ledgers instead of centralised databases. As a result, banks and other financial institutions must modernise their systems to ensure they can manage and transact with tokenized money effectively. This transformation will impact the IT infrastructure, core processes, and even strategic operations.
In this roundtable, we will explore the key considerations FI players need to address as they prepare for this shift, including technical, regulatory systems, and operational challenges.
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