Christine Lagarde Pits Circle Against JPMorgan in IMF Debate

A panel Wednesday featuring JPMorgan and Circle was set up by Christine Lagarde as a face-off between incumbent and disruptor.

The topic: "Money and Payments in the Digital Age.".

Lagarde set the stage by pointing out that cash is diminishing, mobile is on the rise and person-to-person payments have become a gigantic market, especially in China but with very strong showings in Kenya and Europe as well.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire was quick to draw the thread between P2P and crypto.

Payment systems like WeChat and Alipay, he said, are simply a better user experience, but cryptocurrencies reflect an impulse that's endemic to the web.

Youngwood highlighted JPMorgan's work creating a consortium of banks to offer an alternative to Venmo, called Zelle, which had $119 billion in payments in 2018.

Lagarde expressed doubt that consumers would want to check the math.

"There has been more fraud in bitcoins than virtually any other form of payment that has existed," she said.

Allaire didn't want to overemphasize payments.

"Payments is actually the sideshow. Payments is going to disappear," he predicted.