Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau was speaking at a finance conference in Paris and said:
There would be some advantage in moving rapidly to issue at least a wholesale CBDC, as we would be the first such issuer in the world and would thus reap the benefits of having a benchmark CBDC
This is the second time he has spoken this week on the subject as before he stated: “we cannot sacrifice on safety”. His last set of comments were largely focused on Libra rather than a CBDC. It seems that he now thinks the central banks should get there before Libra does. In the past, he has also said that China are more advanced than the rest of the world in the process of creating their own digital currency.
In the statement there was an interesting comment where he said:
It is neither a precondition for nor a guarantee of more efficient payments. However, we as central banks must and want to take up this call for innovation at a time when private initiatives – especially payments between financial players – and technologies are accelerating, and public and political demand is increasing. Other countries have paved the way; it is now up to us to play our part, both ambitiously and methodically
So look out a digital euro may be here sooner than we think.
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