Japan To Implement Bank-deposit-backed Digital Currency in 2022 (nikkei.com) 32
A new digital currency backed by bank deposits is set for a test run in Japan as early as this year, an effort that will involve the nation's top banks and about 70 other companies. From a report: The test run will focus on the digital currency's feasibility for business transactions, such as large payments between companies. The group aims to bring the currency into circulation as soon as the latter half of 2022. The Digital Currency Forum announced the trial on Wednesday. The Forum includes MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Mizuho Bank, Japan Post Bank and the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone group. East Japan Railway, which operates Tokyo's busy Yamanote Line, top trading house Mitsubishi Corp., Kansai Electric Power and retail giant Seven & i Holdings are also involved. Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange service provider Decurret, a subsidiary of Internet Initiative Japan, and others will lead the trial.
Please explain... (Score:2)
What is the advantage of a "digital currency" over the current fiat currencies, which can already be transferred digitally? What's the use-case here, different from what you can already do?
The new currency is called DCJPY [gadgetsnow.com], and is being implemented by a consortium of companies. However, it will be backed by your bank deposits. The articles don't say whether it is blockchain-based, but there's actually no reason to think so...
First bank of Rube Goldberg? (Score:1)
Re: Please explain... (Score:3)
Not having to use Venmo, Square, Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, or other processors to send money to one another.
Why do we all just accept we need an intermediate party in order to buy things on the Internet? It's a hidden tax on the economy.
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They are free here, but even the QR codes to initiate payment aren't universally supported by banks. Let alone something more user friendly.
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First, keep in mind that Japan still uses physical cash a lot.
Why do I need to load money onto my train pass instead of doing direct bank transfers for each ride?
The answer is some people don't have credit cards, and will need to buy a train pass at a kiosk. Now, the question is why can't the kiosk just issue a prepaid debit card without there being a giant fee attached to it? I guess "bank transfers" are not so cheap after all. It looks like the proposed solution here is to take all of the misc vendor
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Because handling cash isn't free. There are costs to handling money. In an in-person transaction you have to pay someone to handle it - receive it from the customer, count it, and enter it in the books (commonly called a "cashier").
Over the internet, you have the same thing
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Porn and micropayments.
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The article says it will be on the blockchain.
This is not meant to be an improvement over fiat currency. Its meant to be an improvement over existing "digital currencies" like loading money onto your train pass. Instead of being locked into one vendor, you load money onto this more vendor neutral blockchain and use it at participating vendors.
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Its not the Japanese government doing it. Its a group of banks and zaibatsus.
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I might add... its being done by a group of banks and zaibatsus that don't necessarily trust each other enough to let one of them be the gatekeeper of it.
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What is the advantage of a "digital currency" over the current fiat currencies, which can already be transferred digitally? What's the use-case here, different from what you can already do?
A true decentralized central-bank currency (yeah, yeah, I see what I did there) allows for anonymity. If I transfer 100 digidollars from my e-wallet to your e-wallet, we are the only people who know about it, in the same way if I give you a $100 bill we're the only people who know.
Today's existing digital transfers
Re:Please explain... negative interest rates (Score:2)
Digital currency allows the Bank of Japan (their Fed) impose negative interest rates, something they have been wanting to do for a very long time, but cannot do if paper currency exists.
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Digital currency allows the Bank of Japan (their Fed) impose negative interest rates, something they have been wanting to do for a very long time, but cannot do if paper currency exists.
Even better than that for kickstarting an economy.
If there is deflation, people will hoard savings, so they can get more value from it later. Giving them more money doesn't really help much.
But digital currency can have all sorts of extra limits attached to it.
$500 stimulus payment that expires in a month. Use it or lose it. No more sticking it in a bank or hiding it under your mattress.
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What is the advantage of a "digital currency" over the current fiat currencies, which can already be transferred digitally? What's the use-case here, different from what you can already do?
Supposedly, these govt mandated digital currencies would allow payment to be made offline and directly between the two parties. So, no middleman and offline payment.
Currently, common forms of digital transfer or wire transfer requires one or more middleman. Either both parties are using the same service, such as Visa, Paypal, etc, or both parties use their own agents (e.g. their own banks) which in turn conduct the transfer that may involve even more parties (e.g. interbank transfer through SWIFT or some
It's a trap (Score:3)
The BoJ has spent 20+ years failing to sort out the Japanese economy. They want to try negative interest rates on normal savings (i.e., they want to tax their customers), but cash has an interest of zero percent, so if they go negative then normal savers will just take their money out to get a better rate. "deposti-backed" digital currency can't be taken out, so the banks can charge you for holding it.
Fuck them. Put the interest rates up and let the shitty zombie banks go bust like they should have done 10 years ago.
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Fuck them. Put the interest rates up and let the shitty zombie banks go bust like they should have done 10 years ago.
The banks go bust and the economy implodes. Great way to 'get revenge on the banks' or whatever your supposed goal was. But how did it help the economy or the people in it?
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Fuck them. Put the interest rates up and let the shitty zombie banks go bust like they should have done 10 years ago.
The banks go bust and the economy implodes. Great way to 'get revenge on the banks' or whatever your supposed goal was. But how did it help the economy or the people in it?
Not all banks just the, well, bankrupt ones.
What you're saying is that certain private companies should be immune to making mistakes with their business plans. That doesn't help the economy or the people in it. Do you think house-price inflation is just drifting in from the sun or something? It's a result of all the effort being put into keeping zombie banks upright. The next line of support is negative interest rates.
You have to have a point where you cut the strings or the economy ends up working for the
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What you're saying is that certain private companies should be immune to making mistakes with their business plans.
I said no such thing.
I said don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Do you think house-price inflation is just drifting in from the sun or something?
What house price inflation?
In the past two decades, home prices in some leading North American and European cities have skyrocketed. In Tokyo, however, they’ve flatlined. [wsj.com]
The next line of support is negative interest rates.
Japan has been trying to stave of deflation. [google.com]
You have to have a point where you cut the strings or the economy ends up working for the banks instead of the other way around.
And then you notice those strings were the only things keeping the economy moving.
Since you forgot to answer last time.
How is your plan going to get the Japanese economy going again? And not just cause a complete
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What you're saying is that certain private companies should be immune to making mistakes with their business plans.
I said no such thing.
I said don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
No you didn't.
Do you think house-price inflation is just drifting in from the sun or something?
What house price inflation?
In the past two decades, home prices in some leading North American and European cities have skyrocketed. In Tokyo, however, they’ve flatlined. [wsj.com]
I wasn't talking about the Japanese housing market, although it has flatlined after a huge bubble and crash in the 90s. Japan is an oddball because of the falling population which is resulting in abandoned houses and villages. Against that, the fact that house prices are not falling is notable. But in any case, the BoJ has failed to address any serious issues with the Japanese economy and has simply bought up a huge chunk of the stock market in order to protect it from reality, which brings us
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Oh, yes. Deflation. The great bogeyman. Deflation is good. It has always been good, and it has never been bad.
Agree to disagree.
Have a nice day.
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The BoJ has spent 20+ years failing to sort out the Japanese economy. They want to try negative interest rates on normal savings (i.e., they want to tax their customers), but cash has an interest of zero percent, so if they go negative then normal savers will just take their money out to get a better rate.
Isn't taxing cash what inflation is for?
Cash (Score:2)
People don't care about digital currency (Score:2)
"Crypto" currency is morphing into debit cards (Score:2)
Probably won't get far, because people want that Ponzi-scheme get-rich-quick factor.
You mean a freaking debit card? (Score:2)
This basically sounds like a debit.
For as "advanced" as Japan is, their financial sector is basically stuck in the 50's. The concept of checking accounts + debit cards doesn't exist in Japan (unless its magically changed in the last 5-7 years since I was there).
I really don't know how the West figured this out but Japan somehow hasn't yet. Now they're basically concocting weird systems to reinvent the wheel it seems.
Not really a currency (Score:2)
The article has fewer details than the summary. Is it my browser settings?
Not seeing the BoJ in the list of parties. A proper digital currency essentially allows anyone to have a reserve account at the central bank. That would cut all these other operations out of the loop.
Since that does not seem to be what is being proposed it looks to me like the banks are trying to forestall such from happening.