The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that a planetary digital currency should be built to connect each country before the rise of cryptocurrencies does the same.
Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s director, says that the agency is working on a worldwide platform for central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) to enable transactions between countries, reports Reuters.
She argues that if CBDCs are approached on a country-by-country basis, the need for global interoperable payments systems would be neglected, and the capacity of CBDCs would be underutilized.
“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions… To have more efficient and fairer transactions we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability…
For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform.”
Georgieva says that the IMF is pushing central banks to agree on regulations for digital currencies that could allow for global interoperability. Without a framework, she says that the vacuum of global payments would end up being filled by decentralized cryptocurrencies.
According to her, cryptocurrencies are an investment opportunity when backed by assets, but when they are not they are a “speculative investment.”
The IMF executive says CBDCs would promote “financial inclusion” and make remittances cheaper.
A recent survey from the Cato Institute in collaboration with YouGov suggested that the overwhelming majority of Americans were opposed to the issuance of a CBDC if it gave the government control over how people spend their money.
About 68% said they were against the adoption of a CDBC if it meant that the government could keep an eye on their spending, and 68% say they will not support a CBDC if it eliminated all cash.
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