According to reports, the Reserve Bank of Australia said in a recent paper on payments that it was skeptical of the benefits of CBDCs and expressed concerns over private stablecoins and their potential impact on the monetary system. In light of the country’s new real-time payments platform, the central bank said there was no strong policy argument for embracing a centrally issued digital currency. Australians are reportedly more reluctant than people in other countries towards switching from cash to digital payments.
The central bank does not see any need to move to a digital currency.
The central bank said there was presently no impetus to move towards digital currency. Notably, during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, cash usage has actually increased across Australia, with the bank pledging to support paper banknotes “for as long as Australians wish to keep using them.” The central bank went on to say that even for those digital currencies that are reported to be nearing a viable launch, like Facebook’s Libra, the regulatory picture remains highly uncertain, with the bank flagging several potential downsides of CBDCs.
Central banks across countries continue to explore CBDCs.
Since the social media giant Facebook announced its crypto project Libra last year, central banks in many countries have started to take a serious look at the possibility of CBDCs. The People’s Bank of China is all set to become the first major central bank to issue a national digital currency. The central bank has been working on its national digital currency, dubbed DCEP, for the last five to six years and is now very close to issuing it to the general public. As reported earlier, the Bank for International Standards revealed that CBDC was more searched than bitcoin and Libra in 2020.
