Japan’s three largest banks, as part of a group of 30 private sector actors, are set to collaborate on an experiment with a digital yen. The group consists of banks, various Japanese brokerages, utility and telecom firms and retailers, according to a Reuters report published on Nov. 19. For the purposes of the experiment, the private banks will be responsible for issuing the currency, although the prospect of other actors becoming involved in issuance has not been ruled out, according to the chair of the new group, Hiromi Yamaoka. Yamaoka is a former executive at Japan’s central bank, which itself …

Hiromi Yamaoka, former head of the payment and settlement systems department at the Bank of Japan, said that the country will likely need several years before it can issue a central bank digital currency. In a Nov. 17 Reuters interview, Yamaoka explained that the BoJ is concerned about a CBDC potentially triggering massive outflows from private bank deposits. Yamaoka, who now chairs a group of banks looking at building a common settlement infrastructure for digital payments, argued that there is “no point issuing a CBDC if it isn’t used widely,” stating: “The fundamental question, and a very tricky one, is …

Mark my words: Governments and central banks will never care about your wealth and your privacy as much as you do. That reality is exactly why central bank digital currencies are dead in the water already. They say if you can’t beat them, join them. That’s exactly what CBDCs are attempting to do. They want to join the party that is cryptocurrency without actually giving their citizens the privacy and democratic freedom a truly decentralized digital currency provides. In a recent article, I made the argument that regulation and law enforcement are a necessary part of crypto truly going mainstream. …

Ukraine is ranked as the world’s leader in the Global Crypto Adoption Index 2020, according to a research published by Chainalysis earlier this fall. Despite this, cryptocurrencies still remain a gray area in the economy. Since 2014, Ukrainian authorities have been trying to implement crypto legislation that would transform the country into a competitive jurisdiction for running crypto-related businesses, but the efforts did not yield any results. Finally, just a few months ago, the Ukranian government presented a new bill on digital assets to legitimize the sector — and this time, the attempt may well be successful. The fintech strategy …

Robert Bench, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s director of applied research, thinks privacy should be a focus during the creation of digital money, not an afterthought. “Privacy is a question that we have learned is critical from a technical perspective,” Bench said during a Chamber of Digital Commerce panel on Friday: “One of our learnings is that the questions of privacy and identity must be considered at the earliest stage of the architecture. Making privacy or identity an ad hoc process is suboptimal from both a privacy or identity perspective, and most importantly from a security perspective.” A largely …

As numerous countries across the board navigate their feelings on central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, Benoît Cœuré of the Bank for International Settlements thinks physical cash will retain its importance. Heading up the BIS’ innovation wing, Cœuré formerly held a position with the European Central Bank on its executive board. “In the euro area, unlike Sweden or China, demand for banknotes is still strong,” Cœuré said in an interview on Thursday. “Their role is declining as a means of payment, but they remain a means of savings.” He added: “No one wants to force consumers to choose their payment …

Blockchain and digital assets offer folks the ability to store their own assets, possibly threatening the solutions banks offer. Making sure banks remain relevant is not on the to-do list of England's central bank, however, according to the Bank of England's deputy governor Jon Cunliffe. “Our job is not to protect bank business models,” Cunliffe said, as reported by a Friday Reuters brief. “Banks will have to adjust," he added. "Our job is to ensure that if bank business models change, we manage the financial and macro-economic consequences of that.” Cunliffe posited that it is not the responsibility of the …

The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, has said that the bank should reach a decision on releasing a digital euro early next year. In an online policy panel held on Nov. 12, Lagarde stated that the European Central Bank, was not “racing to be first” in its efforts to release a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. However, she said that the results of the consultation the central bank launched in October on a digital euro would be ready in January 2021. “At that point in time we will make the decision as to whether or not …

Russia’s vast oversight of cryptocurrency transactions appears to have one crucial blindspot: There doesn’t seem to be any liability for criminals who use digital assets to conduct illegal transactions. On Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Finance proposed new amendments to the country’s cryptocurrency laws that seek to clarify rules around tax evasion. Under the proposed guidelines, Russians can face up to three years in prison for failing to report transactions of 45 million rubles ($583,000) or more at least twice in three years An earlier ministry proposal recommended three-year prison sentences for anyone who fails to report transactions of over 1 …

Deutsche Bank, the largest banking institution in Germany, is confident that central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, will replace cash in the future. The bank’s research arm, Deutsche Bank Research, published a new report on economic estimations and proposals to assist global economies hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Titled “What We Must Do to Rebuild,” the study was released on Nov. 10. In the report, Deutsche Bank states that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the “digital cash revolution.” According to the bank, this revolution will eventually enable CBDCs like China’s digital yuan or Sweden’s e-krona to replace cash in …

President of the Dallas Federal Reserve Robert Kaplan believes the US central bank should begin work on a digital currency immediately, a clear indicator that some policymakers view this as an urgent matter. Speaking Tuesday at a virtual conference hosted by Bloomberg, Kaplan reportedly said: “It is critical that the Fed focuses on developing a digital currency in the coming months and years.” The central banker’s remarks were part of a broader discussion on the economy and fiscal policy. Kaplan is a member of this year’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the organization tasked with setting monetary policy. The 2020 …

Lebanon’s central bank plans to launch a new digital currency in 2021 as part of a broader effort to combat a parallel economic and financial crisis that has engulfed the country. Central bank governor Riad Salameh told a gathering of officials Monday that “We must prepare a Lebanese digital currency project” as a way to shore up confidence in the banking system. "As for the monetary supply in the Lebanese market, it is estimated that there are $10 billion stored inside homes,” Salameh said, according to the state-run National News Agency. The central banker added that a digital currency project …