Bank of England To Consider Digital Money Plan (bbc.com) 46
The Bank of England and the Treasury have announced they are setting up a taskforce to explore the possibility of a central bank digital currency. From a report: The aim is to look at the risks and opportunities involved in creating a new kind of digital money. Issued by the Bank for use by households and businesses, it would exist alongside cash and bank deposits, rather than replacing them. No decision has been taken on whether to have such a currency in the UK. However, the government and the Bank want to "engage widely with stakeholders" on the benefits and practicalities of doing so. The taskforce will be jointly led by the Bank's deputy governor for financial stability, Sir Jon Cunliffe, and the Treasury's director general of financial services, Katharine Braddick. The Bank has previously said it is interested in a central bank digital currency (CBDC) because "this is a period of significant change in money and payments." The use of cash in financial transactions has been steadily declining in recent years, while debit card payments have been on the rise. Use of credit cards and direct debits have also been increasing.
A digital version of the pound, not a new currency (Score:4, Informative)
"If a CBDC were to be introduced, it would be denominated in pounds sterling, just like banknotes, so £10 of CBDC would always be worth the same as a £10 note," the Bank said."
vs the new digital Euro = zero privacy (Score:2)
Will the digital euro have true privacy?
Lagarde says no: "it will not have the degree of anonymity that banknotes have"
She justifies this by saying surveys show citizens want some privacy but not too much privacy.
You are watching the theft of personal freedoms in real time.
https://twitter.com/gladstein/... [twitter.com]
Digital currency != Crytocurrency (Score:5, Interesting)
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How much usage is lightning getting?
Are there any actual consumer-grade "wallets" that support it?
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The main aim is to allow bad guys to do business in the UK. Corrupt governments and criminals alike. Bypass the normal international checks in the banking system.
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All of those features just make cryptocurrency useless as a reliable store of value. Yes, some people have gambled on it and turned a profit, but there’s no guarantee the gravy train will continue forever.
Re: Digital currency != Crytocurrency (Score:2)
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I would like to know what differences it would have from today money.
Today, if you want to accomplish an interbank transfer from Bank1.MyAccount to Bank2.YourAccount, the steps are (1) Bank1 and Bank2 both have an account with the central bank, (2) Bank1 figures out the net transfer it wants to make to Bank2, (3) Bank1 asks the central bank to alter the central bank's ledgers, so that Bank1's account is subtracted X and Bank2's account is added X, (4) Bank1 debits from Bank1.MyAccount and Bank2 credits to Bank2.MyAccount.
This is how things work across most of the world that
Re: Digital currency != Crytocurrency (Score:2)
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Yeh, I lived London for a couple years a while back and it was the most digital currency friendly city I've lived in (and my own hometown in Australia is no slouch). Being able to use public transport by just tapping on entry with my regular bank debit card was amazing.
I'd love to see them try to replace the Underground payment systems with Bitcoin and watch everyone have to wait 10 minutes for the transaction to clear before they can get through the turnstiles, while the lights in the station dim to help p
What for? (Score:3)
If you are a bank, you already can shift money between customer accounts very cheaply. The only reason to try to do a "digital currency" (or other current hype-bullshit) is to get more people to have an account with you. May be exactly what they are actually trying to do though.
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If you are a bank, you already can shift money between customer accounts very cheaply. The only reason to try to do a "digital currency" (or other current hype-bullshit) is to get more people to have an account with you. May be exactly what they are actually trying to do though.
The Bank of England is the UK's central bank. They issue bank notes, try to manage inflation and stuff like that. They aren't a high street bank and they aren't trying to get people to have accounts with them. This is just about considering technology trends in the area they operate in. Won't necessarily lead to anything.
Re: What for? (Score:2)
You say that as if you're contradicting the grandparent comment. There are actually three, not two, retail banks printing Scottish banknotes, but ultimately it's still the Bank of England that's in charge of the currency.
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Better payment standards for consumer services would help so that payments can as convenient as they are in China without having to marry a company.
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Presumably, the benefits would be:
1. Money can be transferred between individuals offline, immediately, without requiring 3rd party (a bank) in the middle. I.e. it can be used anywhere in the world.
2. Money can be transferred even if the bank's computer was down or otherwise not available. I.e. it became impossible to stop the economy by DDOSing the banks or some payment processor.
3. It only needs your phone, so no need to carry cash anymore.
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And you think a _bank_ would push for 1. or 2.? Seriously.
Re: What for? (Score:2)
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If you are a bank, you already can shift money between customer accounts very cheaply. The only reason to try to do a "digital currency" (or other current hype-bullshit) is to get more people to have an account with you. May be exactly what they are actually trying to do though.
The way to transfer money today is (1) you want to transfer from Bank1.YourAccount to Bank2.HisAccount, (2) the central bank has a ledger where it says how many assets Bank1 has and Bank2 has, (3) Bank1 posts a request to the central bank for a net transfer between Bank1 and Bank2, and the central bank accomplishes this by altering its ledger, (4) Bank1 alters the ledger for YourAccount and Bank2 alters its ledger for HisAccount.
The central bank is looking for ways to streamline this. Are there ways where t
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Do you not understand what a central bank is?
It's the same idea as the federal reserve bank in the USA. In fact, this exact central bank is THE ORIGINAL central bank that created the idea.
Consumers don't use it, it's the bank that actually is the source of all fiat currency.
So no, they don't want ANYONE to "have an account" with them. Unless you're a bank you can't.
But obviously you knew that before commenting, and didn't just shoot off your mouth before even checking wikipedia, let alone actually having
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Defy. DeFi. (Score:3)
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Yeah, silly central bankers. Everyone who's cool knows that Dogecoin is the one true Jesuscoin! Much coin, very wow!
Already done (Score:3)
Currency is already digital for the most part in that money consists for the most part of nothing more than numbers stored in a digital computer.
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Almost like bitcoin...
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Currency is already digital for the most part in that money consists for the most part of nothing more than numbers stored in a digital computer.
Let's spell out which numbers stored in which databases. (1) The country's central bank has a ledger (database) saying that Bank1 holds X assets and Bank2 holds Y assets. (2) Bank1 has a ledger (database) saying that CustomerA has some assets and CustomerB has some assets. When you transfer money from Bank1.CustomerA to Bank2.CustomerZ, the transfer goes through three separate ledgers (databases), and waits until Bank1 has tallied up the net amount it wants to transfer to Bank2 in the central bank's databas
Who didn't see THAT coming (Score:1)
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Tin foil hat time.
The market has spoken - certainly in the UK and Australia cash is on its way out. People prefer swiping their card or phone.
If you see someone paying cash in Australia with anything above a $20 note there is a good chance they like to be paid in cash that the taxman doesn't need to see.
Wait in a queue at any coffee shop in any of the main cities in Australia and you will be very luck to see anyone hand over actual cash. Lots of takeaways etc now don't take cash at all.
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Technical explanation of what this means (Score:2)
I'll try to explain what this means and why it's significant.
The "central bank" model was introduced in 1694 with the Bank of England. Most other countries, including the US Federal Reserve, have followed suite. Each country's central bank has say 1000 customers in its ledger; those customers are the actual banks. If a bank wants to transfer money from one bank to another, it asks the country's central bank to update their entries in its ledger. Likewise, each individual bank has say 1M customers in its led
Your money may be siezed (Score:2)