From Martin Armstrong, Armstrong Economics As I have been warning and appeared in the movie CBDC, the End of Money, that it would have been unconstitutional for the Federal Reserve to create a CBDC, and my sources had confirmed that the Fed would not make a CBDC. This is important that chalks one up for the people – retaining our freedom.
This means that there will be no digital dollar and the end of Kaus Schwab’s dream of you will own nothing and be happy. A CBDC was to be programmable where the government would decide what you could buy or sell.
Reserve Bank Australia speech by Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (September 2024)
It is great to be here at Intersekt. This is an important forum where industry and members of the policy making and academic community can come together to discuss issues that will shape our financial future. It is also timely because this morning the RBA and Treasury will publish their first ever joint paper – part stock take, part roadmap – on central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the future of digital money in Australia. This is the latest initiative to emerge from the RBA’s expanding work program on the future of money. I am here this morning to highlight three key messages from this work.
First, and with the strong endorsement of the Payments System Board, I can confirm that the RBA is making a strategic commitment to prioritise its work agenda on wholesale digital money and infrastructure – including wholesale CBDC – rather than retail CBDC. At the present time, we assess the benefits to the economy as more promising, and the challenges less problematic, for a wholesale CBDC compared to a retail version. This recognises that unlike a retail CBDC that would be issued for use among the public, a wholesale CBDC would represent more an evolution than revolution in our monetary arrangements. It also recognises the stabilising role of central bank money in the settlement of wholesale market transactions, particularly in markets that are (or could be) systemically important – a point emphasized in international standards.
Second, we are publicly committing to a three-year applied research program on the future of digital money in Australia. This has a number of elements. Our most immediate priority is to launch a new project with industry on wholesale CBDC and tokenised commercial bank deposits. The focus will be on understanding how new ledger arrangements and concepts like ‘programmability’ and ‘atomic settlement’ in tokenised markets could unlock benefits for the Australian financial system and wider economy. We don’t have all the answers here, so look forward to engaging with industry partners who have an ability and appetite to innovate with the national interest in mind.
Third, the view of the RBA and Treasury is that if a public policy case ever emerged in favour of issuing a retail CBDC, the Australian Government would be the ultimate decision authority and it would almost certainly require legislative change. This would also be in keeping with the recent international experience. In the case of wholesale CBDC, the decision making and legislative implications would depend on how transformative the new arrangements were. But in either case, you should expect close engagement between the RBA, Treasury and Government.
Read more from Reserve Bank.
