IBM, Deloitte and Bank of America all called central bank digital currencies the future of money — but the Bank of England has warned it's still not convinced.
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With the Davos World Economic Forum in full swing, central bank digital currencies received a chorus of support from the business, banking and government leaders.
In separate statements, Bank of America, IBM and Deloitte all called CBDCs the future of money.
Meanwhile, the Eurogroup of EU finance ministers put out a seven-point document enumerating the features a digital euro would need to succeed — and Ukraine's deputy prime minister said he wants to be the "first test user" of an e-hryvnia by taking his salary in it.
Ukraine has been piloting a planned CBDC in partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation recently.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, on the other hand, questioned the need for a digital pound on Monday — telling a parliamentary committee that he was not sure a CBDC was needed by the retail sector. He said:
"We have to be very clear what problem we are trying to solve here before we get carried away by the technology and the idea."
Skeptics 'Risk Irrelevance'
In a report, Bank of America analyst Akesh Shah called CBDCs the future of money and payments — warning that countries that don't adopt digital currencies "risk irrelevance over the longer term."
They have "the potential to revolutionize global financial systems and may be the most significant technological advancement in the history of money," he added.
IBM Consulting partner Shyam Nagarajan also told CoinDesk TV that CBDCs are the future of money, but added that existing stablecoins are good "stopgaps until CBDCs are available in the market."
Meanwhile, Deloitte's global tax leader, blockchain and cryptocurrency, Rob Massey, said that smart contract-capable programmable money like CBDCs and stablecoins are "absolutely where we're going."
Growing Momentum
While the EU hasn't made a decision on whether to launch a digital euro yet, momentum does seem to be growing.
The EU's investigation into the need for a CBDC has a strong advocate in the European Central Bank and its president, Christine Lagarde, but the latest dispatch from the Eurogroup of finance ministers does at least suggest fairly strong support for the idea.
While making clear that approving a digital euro is a political discussion yet to come, the Jan. 16 Eurogroup statement on the project did encourage all EU and national institutions working on the project to bring "a high level of innovation and ambition in exploring its possible design and distribution options."
A digital euro's benefits, it said, could include "strengthening the open strategic autonomy of the European Union ... fostering financial sector innovation and delivering benefits for citizens, businesses, and member states."
It said the CBDC would not replace cash, and privacy would have to be a central feature while still allowing anti-money-laundering compliance and the prevention of tax evasion, illicit finance and sanctions control. It would have to:
"Ensure a high level of privacy, be easy and convenient to use and widely accessible to the public… To succeed, the digital euro should ensure and maintain users' trust, for which privacy is a key dimension and a fundamental right."
