Bankers Want Their Crypto – Central Bank Digital Currencies (MNBCs) haunt the minds of all major financial and monetary institutions. The Banco de España is of course one of them. She has just announced that she will closely study the issue of a digital euro.
Blockchain technologies under the magnifying glass of central bankers
The Central Bank of Spain has published a report that explains its strategic development plan until 2024.
Among the 5 priorities of the Banco de España for the years to come, prominently appear the new monetary technologies brought by Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It is thus a question for the bank of:
- Lead the analysis of the digital transformation of the financial system, and its effects on monetary policy, financial stability and monitoring of banking risks;
- Study the design and implications of introducing a central bank digital currency .
It, therefore, agrees with the point of view of Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), who is pushing for the adoption of a digitized euro.
Declarations, but everything remains to be done for a European MNBC
The Spanish Bank’s report recognizes the potential benefits distributed ledger technology (DLT) could have in crafting digital currency:
“(…) The use of these technologies can improve the services provided by the central bank, such as those relating to means of payment. ”
The first step, for the year 2021, is to consider different design proposals for a CBDC and to address the issue of digital identification.
In short, the European central bankers are still in the declarations of interest and still seem far from arriving at the stage of prototype and test. When we see the impressive success of the first tests of the digital yuan in China, we say to ourselves that the delay in the race for CBDCs will be hard for the eurozone.
