Jeff Alvares
Central bank lawyer working on the law and governance of payment infrastructure, central bank digital currencies and cross-border payments
Jeff Alvares is Senior Counsel at the Banco Central do Brasil. For over twenty years he has worked on central bank law, banking regulation and payments, including at the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Stability Board and the World Bank. He has helped build the legal framework for Pix, Brazil's instant payment system. His current research interest lies in the international trade law implications of fast payment systems and central bank digital currencies, in both their domestic and cross-border dimensions.
Research About
Paper 1 · Draft manuscript
Public Infrastructure or Contestable Market? A Proportionality Framework for Central Bank Payment Schemes
Develops a four-layer functional model of payment systems (money, settlement, payment schemes and user applications), argues that only settlement has the natural-monopoly features of genuine public infrastructure, and maps the design choices through which a publicly operated scheme can affect competition. Applies the framework under domestic proportionality review to Brazil's Pix, the US FedNow Service and the proposed digital euro, against regulatory alternatives such as mandated common standards and interoperability requirements.
Conference proposal · Society of International Economic Law, 2027 Global Conference
Operation Is Not the Problem: GATS and the Legality of Public Payment Schemes
Asks whether the GATS should discipline a central bank's operation of a retail payment scheme as such, or only design choices that foreclose the scheme layer to competition: exclusivity, mandatory participation, or pricing competitors cannot match. Applies the argument to the digital euro, Pix and FedNow, from treaty coverage, where the Article I:3 exclusion appears to reward foreclosure, to necessity, where a deferential domestic proportionality finding becomes a defense the operator must discharge. Proposal submitted to the SIEL 2027 Global Conference.