Central bank digital currency (“CBDC”) is a crucial FinTech development that aspires to overhaul the current payment system. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, CBDCs' promises to reduce personal contact, facilitate socially desirable use of money, and initiate more targeted monetary measures have increased their popularity. In addition, CBDCs can potentially serve as a tool to internationalize a sovereign’s currency. World central banks, thus, have gradually formulated a consensus on structuring CBDCs, leaving the regulatory aspects of CBDCs deserving more attention.

Regulatory measures on cross-border data flows are essential to personal data protection laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) of the European Union (“EU”) is one of such influential personal data protection regimes, which has become a model and has been adopted by many countries. The GDPR aims to ensure the protection of natural persons regarding the processing of personal data. To protect personal data outside the EU, the GDPR provides certain safeguards for its movement across the EU border.

E-commerce is growing rapidly in Argentina and Brazil, and in both countries the share of the population participating in e-commerce transactions exceeds the Latin American average. Both countries have established a legal framework for data protection, regulation of the internet, consumer protection, taxation of e-commerce, and contracts and e-signatures. Argentina and Brazil also have submitted proposals for negotiations over the treatment of e-commerce transactions in WTO Agreements, and included e-commerce provisions in free trade agreements (FTAs).