By Huw Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s financial services minister said on Tuesday that a lengthy delay in issuing a digital pound would create problems for finance and the economy.
The finance ministry and the Bank of England are jointly assessing a digital pound, with public consultation due later this year.
“There are some very broad geopolitical concerns if the UK sits out indefinitely the ability to issue its own digital currency. Others will,” newly appointed City minister Andrew Griffith told parliament’s treasury select committee.
The Bank of International Settlements, a forum for central banks, said in June that central bank digital currencies are needed to modernise finance and ensure Big Tech does not take control of money.
Around 90% of the world’s central banks are now using, trialling or looking into digital currencies, worried about being left behind by private-sector bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies used for making payments.
“If the counterfactual is that either private enterprises or states come forward with their equivalent currencies, and the UK, either the government or the Bank of England, have no play in that domain at all, then you could end up with some quite difficult consequences in terms of macroeconomic policy, but also the ability to regulate individual transactions,” Griffith said.
Rishi Sunak, who was finance minister at the time, last year asked the BoE to look at the case for a new “Britcoin” or digital pound.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
