According to the Bloomberg report, a senior Bank of Japan’s official said that there is no final decision has been made yet even after the announcement of testing to start next year. The official revealed that a lot depends on the public support for it to go ahead with its central bank-backed digital currency. Kazushige Kamiyama, the head of the central bank’s payment system department and the person in charge of looking into a possible digital yen, said that the central bank had not reached a conclusion yet.
Public support is essential for the Bank of Japan to launch a CBDC.
Kazushige Kamiyama was quoted saying, “at the end of the day there’s no way we can proceed without gaining sufficient understanding from the Japanese public.” Should the BOJ issue a digital unit in the future, it would aim to enhance the transaction ecosystem and coexist with cash and other forms of electronic payment rather than being a monetary policy tool, Kamiyama added. The senior BOJ’s official’s comments indicate that while the issuance of a central bank digital currency in Japan is not set in stone. However, the BOJ is keen to deepen its understanding of how one would operate and what conditions need to be met to go ahead with the launch of a CBDC.
Central banks across countries continue to explore CBDCs.
As reported earlier, the Philippines’ central bank plans to look into how to improve the country’s existing payment system and draw upon other central banks’ CBDC research worldwide. The People’s Bank of China recently finished the biggest trial of its national digital currency and is now planning to issue it to the general public soon. Central banks of many countries are actively working on digital currencies.
