Representatives of Banque de France, the French central bank, have embraced the global perspective on the central bank digital currency (CBDC) discussion, touting it as the foundation of a new international monetary system.
Published on Oct.3, the speech of Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor at Banque de France, calls the CBDC “the catalyst for improving cross-border payments by enabling the build-up of a new international monetary system.” The official emphasizes the necessity of considering cross-border issue around CBDCs from the outset and not as an afterthought.
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Beau sees several paths that the development of CBDC might take. The first is the development of common standards and interoperability between wholesale CBDCs and legacy systems. The second one, promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), is the development of regional or global CBDC platforms. Wholesale CBDCs could be standardized to be exchanged directly on these platforms and perform payment versus payment and delivery versus payment transactions.
The First Deputy Governor nods at the example of Project Mariana, which explored the possibilities of an automated market maker (AMM). The project, involving the Banque de France, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Swiss National Bank, was successfully finished in late September.
The official talked not only about the CBDCs but also about the tokenization of finance. He expressed his belief that the public sector must support the private sector more than ever to enable the full potential of blockchain while limiting the risks. In his conviction, tokenized “central bank money availability” and tokenized assets are allies rather than competitors.
