The Italian Banking Association, which is made up of over 700 Italian banking institutions, wants to help speed up the implementation of a digital currency backed by the European Central Bank (ECB) by participating in related projects and experiments. The ABI expressed its desire to trial the central bank-backed digital currency. The Banking Association had set up a working group to research digital and cryptocurrencies last year. Italian banks are ready to help develop the CBDC that is backed by the ECB. Several central banks around the world are researching digital currencies, and some are close to issuing it to the general public.
The ABI wants CBDC framework to be compliant with EU regulations.
The Italian Banking Association shared ten considerations for a digital euro in its announcement, starting with, “Monetary stability and full compliance with the European regulatory framework must be preserved as a matter of priority.” The banking group prioritized the need for a CBDC framework to be fully compliant with EU regulations in order to gain public trust. The banks will play a critical role in upholding that trust. In its second guideline, the IBA said Italian banks are already working with distributed ledger technology, referencing the Spunta project. The association believes that CBDC would lead to future innovations to the traditional banking system like P2P transactions.
China is all set to become the first major nation to have a CBDC.
The People’s Bank of China has been working on its CBDC project for the last five to six years and is now very close to issuing it to the public. Currently, the central bank of China is testing digital yuan dubbed as DC/EP (Digital Currency Electronic Payment) in four cities around the country. China will become the first major nation to have its own national digital currency. Several experts have also claimed that Chinese CBDC could threaten the global dominance of the US dollar. Several other countries are also planning and researching on CBDCs.
