Tag Archives: Private money

Former Central Bankers on Private vs. Public Money Creation

After leaving office, many central bank governors and senior central bank policymakers tend to become more vocal in questioning the dominant role of commercial bank money in providing liquidity to households and firms. Consider, for example, Mervyn King’s 2016 book The End of Alchemy or Andy Haldane’s June 2021 speech. Stefan Ingves, until recently Governor of the Riksbank, provides another example. SUERF Policy Brief 1507 summarizes his remarks at a recent SUERF event as follows:

His framing was emphatically political, not just economic: how much oligopoly power should banks have, and should the central bank’s role change merely because technology does? His own view: money is part of how a nation defines itself; the process should speed up; CBDCs will not threaten banks; and without a CBDC we are effectively living with privatized money — “wait until people find out.”

The same policy brief also summarizes remarks by Ulrich Bindseil, another prominent former central banker:

On CBDC remuneration he described an “unholy alliance” of opponents — financial-repression sceptics fearing negative rates, banks fearing competitive positive rates, and central banks willing to compromise to get a CBDC at all. On stablecoins he noted that prohibitions (MiCAR, the Genius Act) are leaky, with roughly $86bn of $290bn already remunerated via lending protocols. His conclusion: in a fully digital, 24/7 world, forcing money’s liquidity premium to swing with short-term rates has no economic rationale and breeds instability; a quantity-constrained CBDC would be a “reversal of values” placing public money under restrictions that private money escapes.

“Digital Money, Payments and Banks,” CEPR/IESE Report, 2020

Discussion of Antonio Fatás’ chapter in Elena Carletti, Stijn Claessens, Antonio Fatás, Xavier Vives, The Bank Business Model in the Post-Covid-19 World, CEPR/IESE report, London, June 2020. PDF.

Antonio’s chapter offers a rich overview of the dramatic changes in the world of money and banking that we have seen in recent years. I focus on two themes: the nature of money and how it relates to these developments, and the government’s response to the structural changes we observe.

I discuss the price of money, its fundamental value, store-of-value bubble, and liquidity bubble components; the opaque legal tender concept and the absurd situation that governments outlaw the use of government money (contrary to what some theories would imply); the role of trust in a world without cash; and the substitution of money by smart contracts tied to a database.

And I comment on the many facets of digitalization; the time lag between the origination of new business models and regulatory catch-up; and on central bank digital currency as a key element of structural change in the financial system.

“Digital Money: Private versus Public,” VoxEU Book, 2019

In Antonio Fatás, editor, The Economics of Fintech and Digital Currencies, VoxEU book, London, March 2019, with Markus Brunnermeier. PDF.

We address five key concerns that are frequently put forward:
1. Aren’t digital currencies just a hype, now that crypto ‘currencies’ like Bitcoin have proved too volatile and expensive to serve as reliable stores of value or mediums of exchange? This confuses things. A central bank digital currency (CBDC) is like cash, only digital; Alipay, Apple Pay, WeChat Pay, and so on are like deposits, only handier; and crypto currencies are not in any way linked to typical currencies, but they live on the blockchain.
2. Doesn’t a CBDC or ‘Reserves for All’ choke investment by cutting into bank deposits? No, because new central bank liabilities (namely, a CBDC) would fund new investments, and this would not in any way imply socialism or a stronger role of government in investment decisions.
3. Wouldn’t a CBDC cut into the profits that banks generate by creating deposits? Less money creation by banks would certainly affect their profits. But if this were deemed undesirable (by the public, not by shareholders and management) then banks could be compensated.
4. Wouldn’t ‘Reserves for All’ render bank runs more likely, undermining financial stability? We argue that, in fact, the opposite seems more plausible.
5. Aren’t deposit insurance, a CBDC, Vollgeld/sovereign money, and the Chicago Plan all alike? There are indeed close parallels between the different monetary regimes. In a sense, “money is changing and yet, it stays the same”.