Governor of the Bank of Japan Haruhiko Kuroda once again dismissed the possibility of the central bank issuing a digital currency at a press conference after a G20 meeting between finance leaders and central banks.

 

Facebook’s stablecoin project Libra, which involves cryptocurrency with a stable price pegged to other currency such as legal tender, gained attention at the G20 meeting and highlighted concerns about global stablecoins led by private entities. A major topic of the meeting was whether central banks in each country were investigating the use of blockchain technology and other methods to issue digital currency, with central banks in Norway, Sweden, and Canada already considering plans.

 

At the press conference, Governor Kuroda denied that the Bank of Japan has any specific investigation ongoing in regard to the issuance of digital currency. However, he expressed the inclination to examine optimization in the private sector fields of international payments and remittance centered on the Bank for Internal Settlements (BIS).

 

The BIS established the BIS Innovation Hub in October this year to identify key trends in technology that may impact the work of central banks. One of the purposes for the hub includes research into possible integration of distributed ledger technology for central bank digital currency (CBDC) into bank infrastructure. Depending on trends going forward, the research could provide possibilities for new development.

 

Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya of the Bank of Japan previously dismissed the notion of issuing digital currency in May last year, stating that issuing digital currency by a central bank could potentially cause confusion in the status quo of financial systems.

 

*This article was written by Fisco