According to a report jointly put together by IBM as well as the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), many central banks around the world are quite open to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and believe that they should be available and an important part of every country’s financial system.
The study notes that many of these countries are already seriously looking at the possibility of floating a CBDC and would most likely do so sometime in the next five years. Compiled from responses gotten from 23 central banks including 10 from emerging economies and 13 from advanced ones, the study concludes that 73% of these banks want CBDCs.
“Central banks are responding to the reality that digital currencies, either privately or publicly issued, will soon be part of the global monetary system, and that it is in their interest to ensure they are neither left behind nor displaced.”
The study also shows that over 50% of the respondents are quite worried about Facebook’s Libra. The banks believe that Libra and other private companies who are looking to issue their own digital currencies, could significantly dent the current clime of financial sovereignty being enjoyed by a few countries.
Conducted between July and September 2019, the study agrees with a different one which was conducted by both the IMF and the OMFIF, and released in October last year. In the previous study, 38% of the central banks said that they were heavily invested in the process of evaluating the technology required to float their own CBDC.
IBM is also working on issuing its own stablecoin.
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