Bank of England boss not ‘convinced’ of need for digital pound

The governor of the Bank of England has said he is not “convinced” by new forms of money such as a digital pound, as he also warned over the use of cryptocurrencies.

Andrew Bailey, speaking at a conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, said central banks have to be alert to the growing “non-money system”.

Mr Bailey said he remains “to be convinced that we need to create new forms of money – such as central bank retail digital currency – to achieve” benefits such as smarter payments and fighting fraud.

The Bank of England and the Government are exploring the launch of a digital pound which could be used by households and businesses in the UK alongside cash and bank deposits.

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Doubts

Mr Bailey’s remarks revealed doubts over the creation of a digital pound aimed at everyday consumers, which is being designed but with no certainty it will be officially launched.

He also stressed that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin were a “risky asset class and should be seen as such”.

The UK’s financial watchdog recently said it planned to lift a ban on some crypto-linked investments for customers, despite warning that people could “lose all their money” from buying it.

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Regulation

Meanwhile, Mr Bailey said it was hard to say whether banks had faced “excessive” post-financial crisis regulation. He said a challenging question was “whether we have over-protected the banking system via excessive regulation, and in so doing pushed more risk into non-banks which would be more safely housed in banks”.

“Put another way, have we increased overall financial stability risk by raising the bar too high in banks? It’s a fair enough question, but intrinsically hard to answer,” he said.

He insisted that “we have rightly raised regulatory standards for banks in the light of a financial crisis, the effects of which continue to be felt almost 15 years on”.