Central bank digital currencies can offer finality, liquidity, integrity: BIS

Central bank digital currencies can offer “finality, liquidity and integrity”, and could provide strong data governance as well as privacy standards based on digital identities, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said on Wednesday. The backing for such currencies by the Switzerland-headquartered BIS, which is also known as the central bank of all central banks, also comes at a time when there are ongoing intense discussion .. in India and many other countries on crypto currencies. Noting that central banks stand at the centre of a rapid transformation of the financial sector and the payment system, BIS said Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) represent a unique opportunity to design a technologically advanced representation of central bank money, one that offers the unique features of finality, liquidity and integrity. “Innovations such as crypto currencies, stable coins and the walled garden ecosystems of big techs all tend to work against the public good element that underpins the payment system.