Tag Archives: Libra

Libra 2.0

What’s left? The new plans envision

  • Several stablecoins tied to existing fiat currencies rather than (or in addition to) to the originally planned currency basket.
  • No more “permissionless” transactions, no more “censorship resistance.”
  • Vetting of new wallets by the operator (KYC, AML).

The new Libra White Paper.
Teunis Brosens and Carlo Cozucco in ING’s THINK.
Kiran Stacey and Hannah Murphy in the FT.
Philip Sandner and Jonas Gross in Medium.
Updated (April 25): Eichengreen and Viswanath-Natraj on VoxEU.

 

“Цифровые деньги и цифровые валюты центральных банков: главное, что нужно знать,” Econs, 2020

Econs (a non-profit project of the communications department of the Russian central bank), February 13, 2020. HTML.

Russian version of my VoxEU column on digital money and CBDC. What are we actually talking about? What do we know? And what should policymakers do? I discuss the following points:

  • Finance has been digital forever – what’s new about ‘digital money’?
  • Does the nature of money change?
  • What is central bank digital currency?
  • What is the link between CBDC and the blockchain?
  • Would CBDC have macroeconomic effects?
  • Would CBDC foster bank disintermediation and bank runs?
  • Why consider CBDC at all?
  • What opportunities does CBDC offer?
  • Where do the risks lie?
  • Do the opportunities justify the risks?
  • Do central banks have a choice?

“Digital Money and Central Bank Digital Currency: An Executive Summary for Policymakers,” VoxEU, 2020

VoxEU, February 3, 2020. HTML.

What are we actually talking about? What do we know? And what should policymakers do? I discuss the following points:

  • Finance has been digital forever – what’s new about ‘digital money’?
  • Does the nature of money change?
  • What is central bank digital currency?
  • What is the link between CBDC and the blockchain?
  • Would CBDC have macroeconomic effects?
  • Would CBDC foster bank disintermediation and bank runs?
  • Why consider CBDC at all?
  • What opportunities does CBDC offer?
  • Where do the risks lie?
  • Do the opportunities justify the risks?
  • Do central banks have a choice?

“Libra Paves the Way for Central Bank Digital Currency,” finews and WNM, 2019

My VoxEU column now also on finews and World News Monitor, September 17, 2019.

Digital currencies involve tradeoffs. Libra resolves them less favorably than other projects, and less favorably than CBDC.

When confronted with the choice between the status quo and a new financial architecture with CBDC, most central banks have responded cautiously. But Libra or its next best replica will take this choice off the table – the status quo ceases to be an option. The new choice for monetary authorities and regulators will be one between central bank managed CBDC on the one hand and – riskier – private digital tokens on the other. Central banks have a strong interest to maintain control over the payment system as well as the financial sector more broadly and to defend the attractiveness of their home currency. Nolens volens, they will therefore introduce ‘Reserves for All’ or promote synthetic CBDCs. In economics, things take longer than one thinks they will, as Rudi Dornbusch quipped, but then they happen faster than one thought they could.

“Libra Paves the Way for Central Bank Digital Currency,” VoxEU, 2019

VoxEU, September 12, 2019. HTML.

Digital currencies involve tradeoffs. Libra resolves them less favorably than other projects, and less favorably than CBDC.

When confronted with the choice between the status quo and a new financial architecture with CBDC, most central banks have responded cautiously. But Libra or its next best replica will take this choice off the table – the status quo ceases to be an option. The new choice for monetary authorities and regulators will be one between central bank managed CBDC on the one hand and – riskier – private digital tokens on the other. Central banks have a strong interest to maintain control over the payment system as well as the financial sector more broadly and to defend the attractiveness of their home currency. Nolens volens, they will therefore introduce ‘Reserves for All’ or promote synthetic CBDCs. In economics, things take longer than one thinks they will, as Rudi Dornbusch quipped, but then they happen faster than one thought they could.

Views on Libra

Different aspects of the Libra proposal that various authors have emphasized:

  • Jameson Lopp on OneZero: A “database of programmable resources;” Move; “[p]erhaps the network as a whole can switch to proof of stake, but in order for the stablecoin peg/basket to be maintained, some set of entities must keep a bridge open to the traditional financial system. This will be a persistent point of centralized control via the Libra Association”; not a blockchain, the “data structure of the ledger history is a set of signed ledger states”; initially, 1,000 payment transactions per second with a 10-second finality time; technical aspects.
  • Laura Noonan and Nicholas Megaw in the FT: Gaining regulatory approval (in each US state, as well as in many countries) is burdensome even if Carney signals “open mind but not open door”; ING declined to be part of consortium; how can merchants be brought onboard?
  • James Hamilton on Econbrowser: Currency board; currency competition.
  • JP Koning on Moneyness: Competition for national banking systems; new unit of account; global monies (or languages) never worked out.
  • Stephen Williamson on New Monetarism: Narrow bank or mutual fund; why “krypto” or “blockchain?” [T]ere’s never been a successful banking system that didn’t have a strong regulatory hand behind it.
  • Corinne Zellweger-Gutknecht and Dirk Niepelt in NZZ, Jusletter: Role of resellers; regulation in Switzerland.
  • Kari Paul in the Guardian: Astrology.

“Libra oder lieber nicht? (Libra, or Better Not?),” NZZ, 2019

NZZ, 10 July 2019, with Corinne Zellweger-Gutknecht. PDF.

Libra is supposed to be backed; the returns on the securities backing it are going to be distributed among the Libra partners; and Libra’s price is supposed to be managed by a network of market makers. We don’t know much more. Will market makers have the incentive to deliver?

See also the longer article in Jusletter.

“Das Geschäftsmodell hinter Libra (Libra’s Business Model),” Jusletter, 2019

Jusletter, 1 July 2019, with Corinne Zellweger-Gutknecht. PDF.

Libra is supposed to be backed; the returns on the securities backing it are going to be distributed among the Libra partners; and Libra’s price is supposed to be managed by a network of market makers. We don’t know much more. Will market makers have the incentive to deliver?

The Bank of England Welcomes Fintech

In the FT, Chris Giles, Caroline Binham, and Delphine Strauss report about plans of the Bank of England to let fintech companies

bank at Threadneedle Street and thereby offer payments systems on a level playing field with commercial banks.

The editorial board of the FT welcomes the plans; it seems to have in mind not only competition but also “synthetic” CBDC:

By offering fintech companies access to the BoE’s vaults, the governor may inject much-needed competition into the sector. What must follow is proactive regulation …

Commercial banks have traditionally had exclusive access to deposits at the UK’s central bank, offering them a competitive advantage through cheap banking services. … Another potential advantage for consumers is they could be paid the central bank’s often favourable interest rate directly — rather than relying on traditional banks to pass on rate rises.

Mark Carney outlined the plans in his Mansion House speech. Here are some excerpts from the section on digital finance:

… the Faster Payment System (FPS) launched a decade ago has made payments quicker (within two hours) and more cost effective by encouraging direct bank-to-bank transfers.

While mobile app PayM uses FPS to facilitate direct bank-to-bank payments between individuals via text, it requires both the sender and recipient to be signed up to the third party service. But few are. And FPS is not yet used for in-store or online purchases as the infrastructure required at the point of sale does not reliably exist in the UK.

In these regards, the UK is still a long way behind countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands and India …

The revolution of payments may not be driven by the old bank-based systems … Major changes are on the horizon … That’s why the Bank fully supports the Payments Strategy Review the Chancellor has launched this evening.

To support private innovation and to empower competition, the Bank is levelling the playing field between old and new. This means allowing competitors access to the same resources as incumbents while holding the same risks to the same standards.

… we are now making it easier for a broad set of firms to plug in and compete with more traditional providers. In July 2017, we became the first G7 central bank to open up access to our payment services to a new generation of non-bank PSPs. …

Responding to demands from innovators, the RTGS rebuild will also now provide API access to users to read and write payments data, as well as implementing a system whereby each payment will be tagged with information in a standardised format across the world. This global messaging standard will speed up settlement both domestically and across borders.

… Today, the Bank of England is announcing plans to consult on opening access to our balance sheet to new payment providers. Historically, only commercial banks were able to hold interest-bearing deposits, or reserves, at the Bank. …

From the Bank’s perspective, expanding access can improve the transmission of monetary policy and increase competition. It can also support financial stability by allowing settlement in the ultimate risk free asset, and reducing reliance on major banks. Users should benefit from the reduced costs and increased certainty that comes with banking at the central bank. …

This access could empower a host of new innovation. … settlement systems using distributed ledger technology … consortia, such as USC, propose to issue digital tokens that are fully backed by central bank money, allowing instant settlement. This could also plug into ‘tokenised assets’ – conventional securities also represented on blockchain—and smart contracts. This can drive efficiency and resilience in operational processes and reduce counterparty risks in the system, unlocking billions of pounds in capital and liquidity that can be put to more productive uses.

The potential transformation in retail payments is even more fundamental. …

The Bank of England approaches Libra with an open mind but not an open door. Unlike social media for which standards and regulations are being debated well after they have been adopted by billions of users, the terms of engagement for innovations such as Libra must be adopted in advance of any launch.

Carney also outlines plans to support initiatives that aim at giving households and firms control over “their” data:

To make real inroads, SMEs must be able to identify the data relevant to their businesses, incorporate it into their individual credit files, and easily share these files with potential providers of finance through a national SME financing platform.

This would put into practice the recommendations from Professor Jason Furman’s Digital Competition Panel report on how to extract value from data and promote competition. One of the most important recommendations in this regard is to give consumers control of their data. This would allow consumers to move their personal information from one platform to another and avoid lock-in effects, opening the door to new services. To some extent, this is what Open Banking hopes to achieve. Although to make this a success means establishing common off the-shelf API standards and operating platforms onto which developers can build. …

It is not for the Bank of England to build this platform but we can help lay some of groundwork. The messaging standards we are adopting in the new RTGS will also include tagging payments with a unique ID called a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).

Link to earlier post on the SNB’s policy.

Libra

In the FT, Hannah Murphy reports about Facebook’s launch of Libra.

Lots of skepticism in the comments section.

And Hannah Murphy reports that

[p]ositive Money, a consumer campaign group, attacked the proposal. “Our money is increasingly in the hands of a small number of banks and payment companies, and we should avoid ceding further control to unaccountable corporate interests. Facebook’s plans pose alarming implications for privacy and power in the economy,” said David Clarke, the head of policy at the group.