Episode 316: The Rise of Parallel Financial Systems: Digital Currencies, Sanctions Evasion, and Geoeconomic Influence with Dr Dan McDowell

This episode with Dr Daniel McDowell examines how digital currencies, financial sanctions, and geopolitical competition are shaping the future of the global monetary system. We explore why the US dollar continues to dominate global finance despite political pressure and technological change, how sanctions influence state behaviour, and why network effects make rapid currency shifts unlikely. The discussion also looks at the emergence of central bank digital currencies and alternative payment systems as hedging tools rather than immediate challengers to dollar dominance, and considers how domestic policy choices, alliance dynamics, and economic coercion may affect confidence in the system over time.

Dr McDowell is a leading scholar of international political economy and global finance. He is the Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. He is the author of Bucking the Buck: US Financial Sanctions and the International Backlash Against the Dollar, and is widely known for his work on currency competition, financial sanctions, and the political foundations of monetary power.

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Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Dominic is the go-to business advisor for leaders navigating risk, crisis, and strategy; trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage. Dominic equips today’s business leaders with the insight and confidence to lead through disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.

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Transcript:

Daniel McDowell: [00:00:00] It’s really hard to pivot away from a single dominant global currency because of network effects. Everybody’s already in the dollar system. Everybody’s using the dollar. Even with technological innovation, even with these political pressures, I think the most likely outcome is dollar dominance and stability, even with some technological change into the future. But I think there are some things we should be preparing for.

[00:00:23] Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide.

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Dominic: [00:01:04] Today we’re examining how digital currencies, sanctions, and geopolitics are transforming the foundations of global finance. Right across the world, governments are experimenting with central bank digital currencies, regional payment networks, and blockchain-based settlement systems, and many of them may be doing so with the shared goal of reducing their dependence on the US dollar.

Dominic: I’m Dominic Bowen, host of the International Risk Podcast, and to unpack what this really means, I’m joined by Daniel McDowell. He’s a leading scholar on currency competition and financial sanctions, and the author of Bucking the Buck: US Financial Sanctions and the International Backlash Against the Dollar.

Dominic: Daniel, welcome to the International Risk Podcast.

Daniel McDowell: [00:01:47] Thank you. It’s great to be here. I’m in Syracuse, New York, which is my home base at Syracuse University.

Dominic: [00:01:54] Fantastic. I’m really looking forward to this topic. I think this is going to be really interesting for business leaders, policy advisers, politicians, and all of our listeners.

Dominic: Over the last decade, we’ve seen a significant transformation in how global finance operates. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced some deep reassessments, but I think it started before then, and states have increasingly been building their own digital currencies.

Dominic: We’re seeing regional payment systems expand, a lot of conversations within BRICS and BRICS Plus about alternative currency systems, and this is all potentially putting pressure on dollar-based networks.

Dominic: Before we get into the politics behind it or the technology behind it, help us understand the basics. What’s the difference between the dollar’s role in global payments versus its role as a reserve currency, and why should our listeners care?

Daniel McDowell: [00:02:45] I think that’s a good starting point because usually when the dollar is discussed, the term “reserve currency” is used as a catch-all. “Will the dollar lose its reserve currency status?” is often how the question is presented, and that’s maybe the most visible role and the one that comes with the most status, but it misses the fact that the dollar performs these other functions for the global economy as well.

Daniel McDowell: A useful starting point is to think about the role money performs within a national economy. If you’re an individual or a business, you’re using your national currency as a unit of account to price goods and services.

Daniel McDowell: When you sell something, you accept payment, which means the currency is performing the medium-of-exchange role. If you then take that money and put it in the bank, it’s performing the store-of-value role, preserving wealth into the future.

Daniel McDowell: The world economy doesn’t have a national unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. There’s no global currency. What happens instead is that the global marketplace settles on a single currency, or a couple of currencies, but one that dominates in each of these roles for global business.

Daniel McDowell: And that’s the dollar. It’s the world’s preferred payments currency. When goods and services are exchanged across borders, the medium of exchange used to buy, sell, and settle those transactions tends to be the dollar.

Daniel McDowell: It accounts for around 57 percent of all cross-border payments today. The euro, the next closest competitor, is at around 15 percent, so the dollar has a very large lead.

Daniel McDowell: The dollar is also the world’s preeminent reserve currency, which is the role that tends to receive the most attention.

Daniel McDowell: What that means is that when countries interact in the global economy, they build up foreign currency balances through trade and financial transactions. They then invest those balances, most often in safe and liquid assets, typically US Treasury bills and bonds.

Daniel McDowell: Based on the IMF’s most recent data, around 56 percent of global foreign exchange reserves are held in dollars, with the euro again the next closest competitor at around 20 percent.

Daniel McDowell: Dollar dominance has its benefits, but it also exposes countries to certain risks, which I’m sure we’ll get into, given the name of your podcast.

Dominic: [00:07:24] I think your work often shows that there are a few things people understand intrinsically but that are often ignored in public debates. Countries like Russia, Venezuela, and others have significantly increased their gold reserves after being hit with US sanctions, or when they face serious risk of them.

Dominic: [00:07:40] Gold is hard to freeze, easy to move, and works well in black market channels. You’ve also mentioned how trade and debt contracts work for sanctioned countries, and how countries at risk of sanctions move into different denominations and new payment systems, including non-SWIFT channels. This is most visible after major sanction shocks.

Dominic: [00:08:01] There’s evidence that it’s not just current sanctions, but fear of future sanctions that can trigger similar behaviour. Is this a failure of sanctions, or is it something we simply have to accept — that countries at risk of sanctions will move to non-US-dollar ways of making payments?

Daniel McDowell: [00:08:19] Yeah. As a university professor, I teach a class — I’m just wrapping up the semester — on geoeconomics and economic statecraft, and we spend quite a bit of time talking about sanctions.

Daniel McDowell: [00:08:30] The way I explain this to my students is that just because the United States, or any other country or group of countries, imposes economic penalties — whether financial sanctions or trade sanctions — doesn’t mean the targets are just going to say, “Oh well, I guess I can’t interact in the world economy anymore.” They’re going to look for other options.

Daniel McDowell: [00:08:49] Those options may not be as appealing. They may be inefficient. They may have all kinds of drawbacks. But over time, they can develop in ways that allow countries to minimise the effects of sanctions.

Daniel McDowell: [00:09:00] With financial sanctions, the way this works is that the United States controls the financial infrastructure through which dollars flow. Because the dollar is the currency the world economy runs on, the United States can carve out targets and say, “You’re not allowed to participate in this network anymore.” That is immensely costly.

Daniel McDowell: [00:09:29] But to assume that targets like Russia or Iran are just going to say, “Well, I guess I can’t trade with anybody anymore,” is naïve. They’re going to try to figure out whether they can stitch together some alternative network that the United States doesn’t control.

Daniel McDowell: [00:09:44] Especially now, with emerging digital technologies, there are options on the menu that didn’t exist ten or twenty years ago.

Daniel McDowell: [00:09:58] That’s what we’re seeing. Targeted countries are exploring these options, sometimes working together, sometimes in an ad hoc way. This political counter-reaction to sanctions is real.

Daniel McDowell: [00:10:00] The more the United States uses financial sanctions as a coercive tool, the more targeted countries innovate and look for alternatives.

Dominic: [00:10:07] I’d be interested in the economic and political ramifications of that. If you were advising the Trump administration, or any subsequent US administration, would you advise them to tone down sanctions to avoid the risk of losing confidence in the dollar or driving countries toward alternative systems?

Daniel McDowell: [00:10:23] What’s interesting about your question is that for an administration that has made a name for itself wielding US economic power coercively, one of the first things you think of with the Trump administration is President Trump’s love of tariffs and using them to strong-arm other countries across a range of policy areas, not just economic policy.

Daniel McDowell: [00:10:42] For an administration with that reputation, the Trump administration has, until very recently, been relatively reticent to use financial sanctions.

Daniel McDowell: [00:10:59] During the 2024 presidential election, President Trump himself, and some of his close advisers, hinted that they were sceptical of using financial sanctions as much as previous administrations — including the first Trump administration, which did use them — in part because of concerns about the dollar.

Daniel McDowell: [00:11:16] Trump warned the BRICS countries that if they created their own currency, he would impose tariffs on them. So he’s clearly aware of these concerns, and some in his inner circle are as well.

Daniel McDowell: [00:11:30] This concern goes back ten or fifteen years, particularly within the US Treasury. Treasury secretaries under Obama and under Trump have all expressed fears that the more we use the dollar as a coercive tool, the more we push targeted countries and actors to look for alternatives.

Daniel McDowell: [00:11:38] We have to be aware of that risk. I do think there’s a risk of overuse. I think the United States has probably reached that point already.

Daniel McDowell: [00:11:58] There was a 2021 report from the US Treasury that basically said we use this tool for everything. When you use it for every foreign policy crisis and challenge, you create pent-up demand for non-dollar alternatives.

Dominic: [00:12:07] Thanks for explaining that. I also want to ask about the security dimension.

Dominic: [00:12:11] There’s a growing strand of economic research suggesting we underestimate military power and alliance networks in sustaining monetary hegemony. Historically, we’ve seen this with the Spanish peso, the Dutch guilder, sterling, and now the dollar.

Dominic: [00:12:30] There seems to be a link between reserve currency status, military leadership, and control of sea lanes and trade routes. From your perspective, is there a link between defence and alliance relationships and maintaining global demand for dollar reserves, or is that coincidence?

Daniel McDowell: [00:12:46] No, I think there is a link. I’d point to two ways alliance politics matter.

Daniel McDowell: [00:13:00] First, US allies tend to hold more dollars on average than comparable countries that are not allied with the United States.

Daniel McDowell: [00:13:02] When you hold dollar reserves, what you’re effectively doing — because you’re holding US Treasuries — is loaning your financial resources to the US government.

Daniel McDowell: [00:13:16] That helps the United States maintain the fiscal position needed to support overseas military bases and a global security presence. In other words, you’re underwriting US security provision to you.

Daniel McDowell: [00:13:30] If you depend on that security, it serves your interest to be invested in that country. That creates an incentive to hold dollars.

Daniel McDowell: [00:13:46] The second point is less appreciated, but increasingly important. This doesn’t apply to all US allies, but it’s especially relevant for Europe through NATO.

Daniel McDowell: [00:14:00] The euro is the second-most important currency in most categories. The European Union has political and economic features that could support a larger global role for the euro.

Daniel McDowell: [00:14:03] One reason it hasn’t taken on that role is that Europeans have been reluctant to unify capital markets, issue joint debt, and expand debt issuance — steps that would make the euro more attractive.

Daniel McDowell: [00:14:31] If the United States were to pull back its alliance commitments to Europe, Europeans might need to spend more on defence and issue more debt, creating more euro-denominated assets.

Daniel McDowell: [00:14:47] That could lead to a shift into euros. When you rely on the US for security, you don’t need to do that. Without that security, the balance changes.

Dominic: [00:14:56] Very interesting. I’d like to pivot to the technological side now. But before that, I want to remind listeners that they can watch the podcast on YouTube.

Dominic: [00:15:07] Please search for the International Risk Podcast on YouTube, subscribe, and like our content — it really helps us.

Dominic: [00:15:24] Daniel, we hear a lot about digital infrastructure, digital currencies, and alternative payment systems. What are the most important developments you’re seeing, and do they strengthen or reduce reliance on the dollar-based system?

Daniel McDowell: [00:15:44] Central bank digital currencies — CBDCs — really emerged around 2020. There was a surge during the pandemic, and after Facebook introduced its Libra project.

Daniel McDowell: [00:16:00] Libra didn’t go anywhere, but it served as a catalyst for governments to respond. We’re seeing innovation in this space, particularly around cross-border payments.

Daniel McDowell: [00:16:20] Legacy systems rely on correspondent banks. It’s a hub-and-spoke system, with a small number of major banks at the centre.

Daniel McDowell: [00:16:30] For the dollar system, this is the Clearing House Interbank Payments System — CHIPS — with fewer than fifty banks connecting most of the world’s dollar transactions.

Daniel McDowell: [00:16:37] CBDCs don’t rely on correspondent banking. They operate on digital ledgers, meaning the infrastructure is fully digital and not necessarily US-based or subject to US law.

Daniel McDowell: [00:16:52] Of course, it’s run on a digital ledger known as the blockchain. What that means is that the infrastructure is fully digital and it is not US-based or necessarily subject to US law. This is why, in the conversation we’re having, part of what’s motivating interest in these different possibilities is a desire to avoid US surveillance and US control, of the kind we’ve seen with Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, where the United States has used sanctions against those countries.

Daniel McDowell: [00:17:30] There are a number of central bank digital currency projects aimed at this cross-border payment goal. None of them, to be perfectly honest, are especially well developed or seriously challenging the legacy network at the moment. I would say we’re currently in a phase of exploration.

Daniel McDowell: [00:17:48] There are a couple, and one in particular, that I think are worth keeping an eye on, especially because of the actors involved, in particular China. But the main thing to keep in mind is that the interest from a geopolitical or security perspective is really about independence from the legacy dollar system.

Dominic: [00:18:00] I understand these systems are really aiming to reduce the cost and delays of bank transfers, which is clearly a positive development. I think everyone supports that.

Dominic: [00:18:06] There are a few different systems. There’s the digital euro in the euro area, and there are parallel efforts by China with the digital yuan. Can you talk about the differences, and whether this is something we should be monitoring?

Daniel McDowell: [00:18:18] I think the first thing to keep in mind when we talk about the digital euro or the digital yuan is that, in most cases, and certainly in both of these cases, the primary goal is payments within China and payments within the eurozone.

Daniel McDowell: [00:18:30] There’s an important distinction between what’s called a retail CBDC and a wholesale CBDC. A retail CBDC is about payments between individuals and businesses within an economy. A digital euro, for example, is a way to make it easier, quicker, and more secure for actors within the eurozone to settle payments with each other. It’s similar to moving from cash to card payments within an economy.

Daniel McDowell: [00:19:00] That’s distinct from wholesale CBDCs, which are designed for banks, particularly central banks, to use with one another to settle international payments. A lot of coverage of the digital euro doesn’t always make that distinction clear.

Daniel McDowell: [00:19:30] The digital euro is less about challenging the dollar in cross-border payments than it is about ensuring Europeans continue to use euros for domestic economic activity in the future.

Daniel McDowell: [00:19:33] That concern is separate from sanctions. It’s more about the risk that other innovations, particularly dollar-backed stablecoins, could gain a foothold and lead to greater dollarisation.

Daniel McDowell: [00:19:51] From a monetary sovereignty perspective, governments want to ensure that within their own domains, their currency is what market actors are using. That’s why distinguishing between retail and wholesale CBDCs is so important.

Dominic: [00:20:07] Is this idea of digital sovereignty the same as what we hear from BRICS countries like China, Brazil, and Russia, who explicitly want alternative payment platforms to reduce exposure to dollar-based systems and Western infrastructure?

Dominic: [00:20:23] Is that the same kind of sovereignty that BRICS and BRICS Plus are talking about?

Daniel McDowell: [00:20:26] I think BRICS is more focused on the cross-border, wholesale side of things. It can be confusing because all of these developments are happening at once, and on the surface the tools look similar, but they’re actually quite different.

Daniel McDowell: [00:20:40] Russia and China, in particular, have been vocal, and Russia especially for obvious reasons. Russia has been dealing with extremely tight financial sanctions, which have been tightening over the last four years since 2022, and arguably going back to 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.

Daniel McDowell: [00:21:00] Russia has been talking to China, other BRICS countries, and even states outside BRICS, pointing to what has happened to them. They were using the dollar to sell oil and conduct business, and now they’re suffering the consequences because Washington disagrees with what they see as their national interests.

Daniel McDowell: [00:21:13] The argument is that the same thing could happen to others, so why not find alternative ways to conduct trade? Russia still needs to sell energy; that’s what its economy runs on.

Daniel McDowell: [00:21:30] They’re working with China to settle more trade in China’s currency, talking to India, using the rouble, the rupee, whatever allows them to maintain those economic relationships and build some level of consensus as a counterweight to US economic power.

Daniel McDowell: [00:21:49] That impulse is really about international trade and cross-border business, rather than the digital euro, which is more focused on domestic monetary sovereignty.

Dominic: [00:21:57] Your point about Russia is really interesting. The freezing of Russia’s dollar and euro reserves in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine was a major moment.

Dominic: [00:22:05] It demonstrated the political leverage of Western financial power, but it also raised questions among third countries about the safety of holding reserves in US dollars. Are we seeing diversification away from the dollar beyond China, India, and Russia? Are smaller states doing this as well?

Daniel McDowell: [00:22:25] I’ll offer a bit of background on the Russia case, because it’s important.

Daniel McDowell: [00:22:38] In dollar terms, most of that was actually euros, because the European Union went along with the multilateral sanctions, but a big portion was dollars as well. There had never been any reserve blocking on that scale; that was historic.

Daniel McDowell: [00:22:56] But it’s also incorrect to suggest, as a lot of the press and commentary tends to do, that this was the first time it had happened. The United States had done this previously to several other countries.

Daniel McDowell: [00:23:00] In 2011, the United States froze something on the order of thirty billion dollars in Libyan reserve assets, for example. In my book, I talk about how this was also done with respect to Iran and Venezuela, all before freezing Russian reserves.

Daniel McDowell: [00:23:14] And the reason that’s important is because the Russians were aware of this. They’d been paying attention to what had happened to these other countries, and so they were already diversifying their reserves.

Daniel McDowell: [00:23:27] To your question about whether countries are diversifying away from the dollar, the Russians absolutely did so pre-emptively. They cut their dollar holdings by about half in 2018, after a particularly harsh round of US sanctions, and this was all before their assets were frozen.

Daniel McDowell: [00:23:40] There’s extensive evidence I present in the book showing that Russian elites were doing this because they were worried they could end up in the same situation, and they were right.

Daniel McDowell: [00:23:53] What they misjudged was that the Europeans would do the same thing. They didn’t expect the Europeans to freeze euro-denominated assets. So they moved out of dollars into euros, into Chinese renminbi, and into gold.

Daniel McDowell: [00:24:00] So the short answer to your question is that it’s hard to know, because reserve data are confidential in most cases. Unless you work at the IMF, you don’t have access to country-level data on reserve composition.

Daniel McDowell: [00:24:12] What we do see is aggregate data. We can talk about overall trends in the dollar’s share, but not individual country behaviour.

Daniel McDowell: [00:24:30] What we do know, and I think this is accurate, is that the biggest shift we’ve seen in reserve allocations is a renewed interest in holding gold.

Daniel McDowell: [00:24:46] If you go back to 1990, central banks were selling gold. It was seen as a relic of the Bretton Woods system. That has completely reversed.

Daniel McDowell: [00:24:56] Central banks have been net buyers of gold since around 2010. A significant portion of that demand, in my view, and there’s evidence in the book to support this, is driven by sanctions concerns.

Dominic: [00:25:00] As finance becomes more digital, more politicised, and more diversified, what are the strategic scenarios that policymakers and business leaders should be considering today?

Daniel McDowell: [00:25:12] I think about possible future worlds we should be preparing for. In most cases, the likelihood of dramatic change is relatively low, because in monetary systems the safest bet is usually equilibrium.

Daniel McDowell: [00:25:27] These systems change very slowly. It’s extremely hard to pivot away from a single dominant global currency because of network effects. Everybody is already in the dollar system. Everybody is using the dollar.

Daniel McDowell: [00:25:47] Even with technological innovation and political pressures, I think the most likely outcome is continued dollar dominance and stability, even with some technological change in the future.

Daniel McDowell: [00:26:02] That said, there are some scenarios we should be preparing for, especially given the issues we’ve discussed.

Daniel McDowell: [00:26:18] The first is a world where it becomes easier for bad actors to evade US financial surveillance and withstand US economic coercion, particularly due to technological innovation.

Daniel McDowell: [00:26:30] That includes dollar-backed stablecoins, which are privately issued digital currencies. The New York Times recently reported that around twenty-five billion dollars moved illicitly through such systems in the past year, including money laundering and terrorist financing.

Daniel McDowell: [00:26:53] Governments will adapt and develop tools to monitor this activity, but it’s a world we should expect.

Daniel McDowell: [00:27:00] The second scenario is one in which China develops an independent and increasingly widely used payment network based on its own currency.

Daniel McDowell: [00:27:18] China is already working on this. It has limitations and constraints, but China has a strategic imperative to reduce dependence on the dollar, especially for trade.

Daniel McDowell: [00:27:30] If more than half of China’s trade were conducted on its own financial network, using renminbi and bypassing US banks, the United States’ ability to use financial coercion against China would be significantly reduced.

Daniel McDowell: [00:27:56] The third scenario relates to US domestic politics. There’s an increasingly vocal group, particularly on the political right, arguing that reserve currency status is an exorbitant burden rather than a privilege.

Daniel McDowell: [00:28:00] This view holds that dollar dominance strengthens the currency and hurts US producers. If that perspective gains traction, we could see US policy choices that actively discourage investment in the dollar.

Daniel McDowell: [00:28:11] That could open space for alternatives to emerge.

Daniel McDowell: [00:28:29] The fourth scenario is a strategic decoupling between the United States and Europe.

Daniel McDowell: [00:28:30] If Europe pursues greater fiscal and capital market unity to rearm because it can no longer rely on the US for security, that could lead to increased euro-denominated debt issuance.

Daniel McDowell: [00:28:37] In that world, we might expect the euro to begin eating into the dollar’s market position.

Dominic: [00:28:46] When you look around the world, what international risks concern you the most?

Daniel McDowell: [00:28:55] The war in Ukraine is the issue I’m paying the most attention to. I see it as a critical test of cooperation among traditional Western powers.

Daniel McDowell: [00:29:07] It has become increasingly divisive in the United States, with growing scepticism about supporting Ukraine, and that’s driving a wedge between the US and Europe.

Daniel McDowell: [00:29:25] If trust breaks down and expectations around security cooperation collapse, that will have major implications in the monetary space.

Daniel McDowell: [00:29:43] We’re already seeing increased discussion in Europe around defence investment and joint debt issuance. These are early steps, but they matter.

Daniel McDowell: [00:29:58] The key question is whether Europe can maintain political cohesion in the face of internal scepticism and external pressure.

Daniel McDowell: [00:30:14] When it comes to the dollar and its closest competitor, the euro, the relationship between the United States and Europe is absolutely critical.

Dominic: [00:30:28] Thank you very much for coming on the International Risk Podcast and sharing your analysis today, Daniel.

Daniel McDowell: [00:30:35] It was my pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.

Dominic: [00:30:37] That was a really valuable conversation with Professor Daniel McDowell, helping us understand how sanctions, digital currencies, and political choices are transforming the architecture of global finance.

Dominic: [00:30:48] Daniel is the Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.

Dominic: [00:31:14] Today’s episode was produced and coordinated by Katerina Mazzucchelli, with multimedia and video content produced by Stephen Penny.

Dominic: I’m Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening to the International Risk Podcast.

Dominic: [00:31:25] This episode was sponsored by Conducttr, the crisis exercise platform that turns crisis plans into lived experiences with tailored scenarios, decision logs, and realistic social media and news feeds. Conducttr helps organisations learn from their mistakes in simulation, not during a real crisis.

Dominic: [00:31:47] Visit the Conducttr website to learn more about their services and products.