BIS: 9 out of 10 Central Banks exploring Crypto Market-Driven Digital Currencies

Many international authorities are closely monitoring how countries are looking at crypto technology. Recently, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) conducted a survey asking countries regarding their interest in digital currencies. According to the survey 9 out of 10 central banks are exploring Crypto market-driven digital currencies.

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) published a report last week titled “Gaining momentum – Results of the 2021 BIS Survey on central bank digital currencies”. Anneke Kosse, the bank’s senior economist, and financial market analyst Ilaria Mattei authored the report.

81 central banks participated in this survey conducted in Autumn 2021. The report describes:

“Nine out of 10 central banks are exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and more than half are now developing them or running concrete experiments. In particular, work on retail CBDCs has moved to more advanced stages.“

The authors explained that Covid-19 pandemic and “the emergence of stablecoins and other crypto accelerated the work on CBDCs”. In fact, ‘advanced economies’ paid special attention to this where central banks state that financial stability has increased in importance. This became a motivation for their CBDC involvement.

Also, the report talked about how the year 2021 became one of the strongest years for ‘crypto assets and stablecoin market’. The authors said:

“This has also spurred collaboration between central banks to monitor the implications of cryptoassets and stablecoins and to coordinate regulatory approaches to contain their risks to the financial system.“

Besides this, many central banks stated that they are working on wholesale CBDCs in order to improve cross-border payment efficiency. Also, around 2/3rds have stated that they are planning to issue a retail CBDC “in either the short or medium term”.

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