London (AFP)

A digital currency issued by a central bank would be one of the "most important innovations in the history" of monetary institutions, said Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England (BoE) on Friday.

"This would bring us into a new era," he added at a conference organized by the BoE and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), on the occasion of the launch of an innovation hub. in London (BIS Innovation Hub).

Around the world, central banks are studying the idea of ​​issuing a digital currency: a dematerialized method of payment that will not necessarily pass the banking industry.

Between the protection of user privacy, the possible use of these currencies for criminal purposes, or the impact of such an innovation on the banking sector, the Bank of England, as well as the European Central Bank and the Reserve federal government, has not yet decided whether the project will be successful.

But monetary institutions are pressed by competition from China, where a digital yuan is already being tested in some cities, and by decentralized cryptocurrencies.

The week was marked by the decision of El Salvador, a small country in Central America, to adopt bitcoin as its official currency.

"It's an interesting experience", commented Friday Benoit Coeuré, director of the technological innovation pole of the BRI, before adding: "we have clearly said that bitcoin does not meet the conditions to be considered as a means payment. It is a speculative asset ".

Central banks are also wary of stablecoins, those means of payment that use some of the technologies developed by free-market cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, but whose issuers claim they are backed by a currency.

The BoE estimated on Monday that if these means of payment were to be democratized, they should be regulated with the same rigor as banking transactions.

One of the projects that most worries regulators, the Facebook-backed Diem, left Switzerland for the United States in mid-May, where the association will focus on issuing a dollar-indexed cryptocurrency.

© 2021 AFP