The director of fintech at the Bank of England, Tom Hutton, recently spoke out about the UK’s plans to implement a central bank digital currency (CBDC) at the Financial Times Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets Summit in London.
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According to a report, Hutton’s talk focused on privacy and anonymity, concepts that he says are at odds with the Bank of England’s approach to digital currency.
Describing the UK’s plans to create a digital sterling as viable only if it “has the highest standards of privacy”, Mutton explained that such a product was never aimed at anonymity:
“Privacy and anonymity are being used as synonyms in a way they shouldn’t be.”
Apparently referring to the possibility of cryptocurrencies being used in the commission of criminal acts -something that experts estimate that It only represents between 0.10% and 0.15% of all cryptocurrency usage- Mutton also mentioned that anonymity was “a public policy issue and something that should not be allowed to continue.”
In other comments, Mutton explained that the digital pound would not be interoperable with cryptocurrencies. His reasoning: they do not “fulfill any of the functions of money.”
Mutton’s comments come less than a month after Bank of England Deputy Governor Sir John Cunliffe, to speak at the Innovative Finance Global Summit in London.
During the act of April 17, Cunliffe addressed CBDCs and stablecoins, telling attendees that the latter “would offer the potential for greater efficiency and functionality in payments,” but that “it is extremely unlikely that any of the current offerings will meet the standards of robustness and consistency.” that we currently apply to both commercial bank money and existing payment systems.
Referring to a national CBDC, Cunliffe said that a digital pound is “probably necessary if current trends in payments and money […] continue”.
The Bank of England has yet to announce when, or even if, the digital pound might launch. In February, the bank published guidance suggesting, as Cunliffe has recently reiterated, that this product might be needed in the future, but it was “too early to tell.”
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