New reports from Cointelegraph this morning show that IBM, a company with a track record of innovation, is suggesting that some central bank worldwide will work to issue a digital currency within the next five years.
A study called Retail CBDCs: The next payments frontier by IBM in conjunction with the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum talks about how global banks agree that central bank digital currencies or CBDCs are likely to revolutionize the world of financial transactions within the next decade.
The report analyzes banks from 13 developed economies and 10 emerging economies, and it wrapped up in September of this year. Besides this and other indicators compiled through research, there are also suggestions from public testimony from bankers and others that hint at the emergence of CBDCs in the near future.
According to Reuters, Philadelphia Federal Reserve bank president Patrick Harker recently called such a move “inevitable.” Reports from St. Louis quote Harker this way:
“Frankly I don’t think we should be the first mover as a nation to do this … It is inevitable … I think it is better for us to start getting our hands around it.”
Others urge caution.
“The solution to (current transaction challenges) is not necessarily that the central bank becomes a provider of retail-payments services,” writes Peter Bofinger at Social Europe in scrutiny of the CBDC strategy. “Rather, this calls for an effective competition policy and comprehensive supervision of payments providers. And one has to ask whether the central bank would be an adequate institution for screening, monitoring and supporting customers, as well as developing new retail-payment technologies.”
Look for more as world leaders continue to consider adding central bank coins into the mix.
