The Bank of Canada does not see a strong reason for issuing a central bank digital currency at the moment. Timothy Lane, the Bank of Canada’s deputy governor and head of research at the bank’s fintech and crypto department, spoke on CBDC issues at a Wednesday panel, Reuters reports. According to the official, the Canadian central bank is now focused on CBDC implementations in more concrete terms, thinking about how it might work and look. However, the Bank of Canada has not found any solid case for issuing a CBDC. Lane said: “In terms of where we are with the …

The Bank of Indonesia is one of the latest global central banks to announce state digital currency plans amid a major spike in the country’s digital payments. Governor Perry Warjiyo said Tuesday that Indonesia’s central bank is planning to launch a digital rupiah currency as a legal payment instrument in Indonesia, Reuters reports. The official noted that the rupiah is the only legally accepted currency for payment in the country so far, and BI will be looking to regulate a digital rupiah the same way it regulates cash and card-based transactions. According to Warjiyo, BI is now studying potential benefits …

South Africa is the latest country to begin exploring the possibility of creating its own sovereign digital currency. According to a release issued on Tuesday, the South African Reserve Bank has begun preliminary feasibility studies about the “desirability and appropriateness” of a retail central bank digital currency. As part of its announcement, the SARB defined a retail CBDC as a cash-complimentary sovereign digital currency issued by the central bank suitable for electronic payments. “The objective of the feasibility study is to consider how the issuance of a general-purpose CBDC will feed into the SARB’s policy position and mandate,” South Africa’s …

Last week’s market-wide price crash caused central banks around the world to issue warnings about the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies. The Central Bank of Kuwait was no exception, and on Saturday, it issued a statement to warn the public about volatility in cryptocurrency markets. The Central Bank of Kuwait stated that crypto assets are not real currencies even though they are commonly called cryptocurrencies. According to the statement, only a lawful state can issue real currency as a symbol of sovereignty: “The real currency is regulated by state authorities such as central banks or monetary institutions. It is considered …

South Korea’s central bank is moving forward with its national digital currency plans as it now looks for a technology supplier to design a pilot platform for the digital won. The Bank of Korea announced that it launched a bidding process to choose a tech partner for studying the practicalities of launching a central bank digital currency in a test environment, Reuters reported Monday. The BoK said that the latest move comes in response to fast changes in the global financial system, stating, “The share of cash transactions is decreasing significantly. The steps we are taking now are to prepare …

The dichotomy between centralization and decentralization in human history seems to be opposing forces gradually overcoming or being overcome by each other. And while one replaces the other, people are justifying both, finding philosophical or theoretical reasons for the existence of both of them. Centralization In the middle of the 17th century, British philosopher Thomas Hobbes published a book titled Leviathan (or, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil), where he formulates social contract theory. According to Hobbes, roughly simplified for this article, humans started from a summum malum — greatest evil — or a constant …

Following a major cryptocurrency sell-off, Canada’s central bank stated that digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC) remain a highly risky asset despite their adoption by institutional investors. The Bank of Canada issued on Thursday its financial system review, an annual report outlining the most important financial risks and economic vulnerabilities. As part of the review, the central bank paid specific attention to cryptocurrencies, stating that crypto volatility is an emerging vulnerability to Canada’s financial system: “Price volatility stemming from speculative demand remains an important obstacle to the wide acceptance of crypto assets as a means of payment. Despite the broadening institutional …

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the government body is moving forward with research to implement a central bank digital currency. In an announcement from the Fed today, Powell said the Federal Reserve Board would be issuing a discussion paper sometime this summer, calling for the U.S. public to comment “on issues related to payments, financial inclusion, data privacy, and information security.” While the Fed chair said crypto was not a “convenient way to make payments” given its volatility, he was seemingly more open to stablecoins and a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. “Our key focus is on whether …

Trust in state-backed digital currencies will be “immeasurably higher” than trust in public cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Russian former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev argued. Medvedev, the incumbent deputy chief of Russia’s Security Council, spoke on cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, at the Saint Petersburg International Legal Forum on Tuesday, local news agency TASS reported. The official pointed out the crucial role of digital transparency associated with emerging financial technologies like public cryptocurrencies. “It’s time to recognize their importance,” Medvedev noted, also stressing the role of new digital forms of money like central bank digital currencies. “It is …

De Nederlandsche Bank NV — the Dutch central bank — has registered about 20 crypto exchanges in the country but is no closer to determining the number of cryptocurrency investors in the country. According to Dutch online news service Nu.nl, regulators like DNB and the Autoriteit Financiële Markten, or AFM, as well as the investor group Vereniging Van Effectenbezitters, or VEB are unsure of the crypto ownership demographic in the Netherlands. Since late 2020, Dutch authorities began enforcing the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive with significant implications for crypto businesses. Under the AMLD-5 paradigm, the De Nederlandsche Bank has …

Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, could pose a threat to financial systems if related risks are not managed, Big Three credit agency Fitch Ratings has warned. Fitch Ratings released a report on Monday entitled “Central Bank Digital Currencies: Opportunities, Risk and Disruption,” which discussed the major trade-offs between risks and benefits associated with CBDCs. Fitch Ratings stated that the key benefits of a retail CBDC lie in its potential ability to expand government-backed cashless payments in an effort to keep up with the wider digitalization of society. The biggest reasons to explore a CBDC for central banks and some …

The Bank of England's deputy governor Jon Cunliffe has argued that a sea change in the issuance and circulation of public and private monies could make general access to a digital form of central bank money crucial for ensuring financial stability in future. In a speech at the OMFIF Digital Money Institute in London, Cunliffe reflected on past, present and future trends in the widespread use of private money issued by commercial banks, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated existing trends away from public to private money for everyday payments. About 70% of respondents to a recent Bank of …