Bailey calls for 'public debate' on digital pound introduction
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey
Speaking at the Financial and Professional Services dinner yesterday (10 July), he said the case for a retail CBDC was being explored and that a CBDC Taskforce was being jointly lead with the Treasury.
«This is important work, and we are keen to hear views and engage widely throughout the project,» he said. «We have recently concluded a public consultation which has, for us, attracted a record number of responses — over 50,000.»
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Bailey explained that from the Bank of England's perspective, the main motivation for a retail CBDC would be to promote the singleness of money by ensuring that the public «always has the option of going into fully functional central bank money that can be used in their everyday lives».
He said: «We have set out a number of arguments for why this might be needed in our consultation paper. But we do not yet know if we will definitely need to do it — this will depend on how trends in money and payments play out.»
If introduced, the Bank of England would call the CBDC the 'digital pound'. Unlike physical money like notes and coins, it would be in the form of an amount on a computer or similar device.
The UK, among many other countries, are looking at the idea of a CBDC because there are more ways to pay for things than there used to be.
Bailey said he does not think we should be using enhanced digitalisation to shift the mix of commercial bank and central bank retail money towards the latter.
«Commercial banks support credit creation and lending in the economy, and I do not wish to see this impaired,» he explained. «We want to encourage more thinking and action in the world of
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