An outside observer’s reading of a pegged currency and a national digital dollar, and what they suggest for an app built around many currencies.
A currency pegged one-to-one to another is a good place to start these Shane Ian Murphy Bahamas notes, because it shows how ordinary it can be to live with two currencies at once.
Let me be clear about where I stand. I write about The Bahamas as an outside observer. I have no business there, and none of my companies operates there. I am based in Ireland, I spend much of my time in the UAE and Asia, and my home page sets out the companies and roles I do hold. What interests me here is the money question, because it connects directly to what I am building at Global Secure.
Two currencies, one everyday life
The Bahamian dollar is pegged one-to-one to the US dollar. For anyone thinking about payments, that is a useful example. When two currencies sit side by side at a fixed rate, people still have to think about which one they are holding, which one a price is quoted in and which one a card will charge.
A fixed rate removes one kind of worry, the exchange rate moving against you. It does not remove the others: the fee for converting, the question of which balance to spend from, the small mental arithmetic at every till. Those everyday frictions are exactly what a multi-currency app should deal with.
In my own working life, between Ireland, the UAE, Singapore and Hong Kong, I handle several currencies with floating rates, which adds the exchange-rate question on top. The lesson is the same either way: people want to see what they hold, in the currency they hold it in, without converting it in their heads.
A national digital dollar across many islands
The second example is the Sand Dollar. The Central Bank of The Bahamas launched it in October 2020, one of the first nationwide central bank digital currencies. It was intended to improve financial inclusion across the country’s many islands.
I find the inclusion goal the most interesting part. The Bahamas is an archipelago, and Nassau, on New Providence, is the capital. When a population is spread across many islands, reaching everyone with physical branches is hard. A digital form of money that works on a phone is one answer to that distance.
It is a reminder that the best money products start with a real problem, such as distance, rather than with a technology looking for a use.
Shane Ian Murphy Bahamas lessons for a multi-currency app
Reading these two examples as an outsider, I come away with a short list of principles. Each one shapes the plans for Global Secure, the all-in-one financial ecosystem app I founded:
- Keep each currency in its own clear balance. Global Secure plans multi-currency accounts with IBANs in GBP, EUR, USD, HKD, AED and more, so a balance in one currency never hides inside another.
- Make spending from the right balance easy. Virtual-only debit cards are planned for both fiat and stablecoin balances.
- Never let a currency gap become a debt. The cards are debit only. There are no credit cards and no lending.
- Treat the phone as the branch. The whole product is an app, with a global data eSIM planned first so the connection is there when the payment is needed.
- Speak the user’s language. More than 30 languages are planned at launch, because a fee nobody can read is a fee nobody can assess fairly.
None of this means Global Secure is designed for, or offered in, The Bahamas. It means the problems that pegged currencies and digital cash try to solve are common problems, and they show up wherever people live with more than one kind of money.
Stablecoins, pegs and the words we use
A peg and a stablecoin both aim at a steady value against another currency, so it is worth being precise with language here. Global Secure plans to support stablecoin balances, and the virtual debit cards will work with them as well as with fiat.
At TriParty Tokenisation, where I am a co-founder and partner, the tokens we coordinate are tied to specific real-world assets and are not stablecoins. I mention that because it is easy for readers to blur the two ideas. A token that represents a vault-held commodity or a medium-term note is a different thing from a coin designed to hold a fixed value, and it carries no guaranteed returns and no guaranteed liquidity.
Precision about what something is, and what it is not, is the habit I would most like every money product to share.
Where Global Secure stands
For readers who want the status rather than the principles: Global Secure is coming in 2027. It is not live. Pre-registration is open at www.globalsecureapp.com.
The plan includes a self-custody wallet and a managed wallet in one app, a crypto exchange, rewards points, discounted digital gift cards with half of the discount passed back to the member, and membership tiers of Basic, Silver and Gold. Ten per cent of net profit is planned for a ring-fenced pot, shared with members after 12 continuous paid months. It is a share of profit, not a guaranteed return. Longer explainers on each part are in the articles section.
Questions people ask
Do you or your companies operate in The Bahamas?
No. I write about The Bahamas as an outside observer. I am based in Ireland and spend much of my time in the UAE and Asia.
Will Global Secure use the Sand Dollar?
I have not said that, and I would not claim it. I use the Sand Dollar here as an example of a money product built around a real problem, distance across many islands.
What is the main lesson from a pegged currency?
That a fixed rate is helpful but not the whole story. People still need clear balances, clear fees and a clear choice of which currency to spend.
Those are my Shane Ian Murphy Bahamas notes on multi-currency living. The examples belong to The Bahamas; the lessons belong to anyone building a money app for people who hold more than one currency, which is exactly what I, as Shane Ian Murphy, am trying to do carefully.
*Shane Ian Murphy is the founder of Global Secure (www.globalsecureapp.com) and a co-founder and partner of TriParty Tokenisation (www.tripartytokenisation.com). Official site: shaneianmurphy.com*
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