Uruguay, for instance, has already carried  5 As the payment market is a natural monopoly with network externalities, it has a strong tendency towards con-  centration. For a more detailed description, see Ingves (2018). 6 See, for instance, Engert and Fung (2017), Davoodalhosseini (2018), Kumhof and Noone (2018) and Meaning  et.al. (2018). 7 See, for instance, Rogoff (2016) for a more detailed discussion on problems associated with cash usage. 3 [9]  out a successful pilot project with a digital peso. In Canada, Singapore and the Eurozone, prototypes have been produced and tested in limited environments to learn more. 8 The pilot version of the e-krona will be simple, but we are still some time away from a possible launch Now that I have explained why we think it is worth analysing an e-krona, I would like to move on to talk a little more about what form it might take. If we construct an e-krona, there are in principle two models we could base it on. In one of them, the e-kronas would be held in an account with the Riksbank and in the other the e-kronas would be in the form of digital units of value (tokens) stored locally, for instance on a card or in a mobile app. Both models would mean that the general public had the opportunity to hold money with the Riksbank, so the difference between the two possible e-kronas is not really so great.
If the central bank fails to do this, the market will certainly come up 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  with some alternatives for this purpose. In this connection, you are no doubt aware that the HKMA has just launched the Faster Payment System a few days ago. Once the system goes live on 30 September, people in Hong Kong will be able to enjoy almost instantaneous P2P payments, making use of either mobile phone number or email address, free of charge to the users. While the Distributed Ledger Technology used in crypto-assets creates many issues, the technology has shown great potential in many other applications. For example, the HKMA and the banks in Hong Kong will soon launch a digital trade (d) finance platform using DLT. We are also in the process of developing a DLT interface that can link the domestic trade finance platform with those of other trading partners, such as Singapore, on a bilateral basis. This new interface is expected to be launched sometime next year. Despite some improvements made in the past few years, cross-border payments, especially retail or small value, remain inefficient and costly. This is unsatisfactory as it is not conducive to financial inclusion in relation to remittances by SMEs or (e) individuals. In this connection, I am pleased to note that progress is being made recently, as some banks and non-bank e-wallet operators are now developing new cross-border payment channels, making use of DLT in some instances, that would result in faster and cheaper services for users.