Opinion: The Central Bank of China is the first in the world to issue a sovereign digital currency

The People's Bank of China will be the first central bank in the world to issue a viable digital currency, while the Libra project from Facebook will fail. This opinion was expressed by Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) Huang Qifan, reports Pandaily .

Speaking at the First Financial Summit in Shanghai, Huang Qifan emphasized that in the current digital age, the methods of payments between enterprises and countries should change.

He also drew attention to the fact that the international liquidity of the RMB is largely dependent on SWIFT (Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Communication Channels) and CHIPS (Interbank Electronic Clearing Settlement Systems). Both instruments are used by the United States to provide global financial hegemony, he added.

“SWIFT is an outdated, inefficient and expensive payment system. Since its inception 46 years ago, its technology has hardly been updated, and its efficiency is relatively low. International bank transfer usually takes 3-5 business days. Large money transfers usually require paper documents, which creates additional difficulties for the efficient processing of large-scale transactions, ”Qifan said.

This does not prevent SWIFT from making huge profits due to its monopoly position in the market, the vice president of the analytical center recalled.

He also said that he was not optimistic about the Libra project, noting that, as in the case of bitcoin, this is an attempt by some companies to challenge sovereign currencies.

“Such a decentralized blockchain-based currency is outside sovereign money. An emission base cannot be guaranteed, the value of the currency cannot be stabilized, and it is difficult to truly form social wealth. I don’t believe Libra will succeed, ”said Qifan.

In his view, the solution is to issue sovereign digital currency by central banks. This will allow them not only to increase the convenience and security of payments, but also to create new rules that will provide an opportunity to link digital currencies to sovereign loans, national GDP, budget revenues and gold.

Qifan recalled that the People's Bank of China is exploring the possibility of issuing digital currency over the past 5-6 years.

“I think the technology is ripe enough. The NBK is apparently the first in the world to introduce digital currency from the Central Bank, ”he said.

Recall that in August, the representative of the NBK said that after 5 years of development, the digital currency of the central bank is ready. However, a representative of the institution later denied media reports about its imminent launch.

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