G-7 Finance Officials Outline Policy Principles for Retail CBDCs

Finance officials from the Group of Seven major industrial nations outlined a set of 13 public policy principles for the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

• Any CBDC must “do no harm” to central banks’ ability to maintain monetary and financial stability, the finance officials of the seven countries (U.K, U.S, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan) said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
• CBDCs must “be grounded in our long-standing public commitments to transparency, the rule of law and sound economic governance.”
• CBDCs should also co-exist with other conventional means of payment such as cash to promote a competitive environment and be a catalyst for digital economy innovation in conjunction with existing and future payment methods.
• The G-7 officials described the principles as “an initial articulation” of their views on CBDCs, highlighting the questions that any CBDC project must be able to answer if it is to earn the trust and confidence of its users and the wider international financial community.
• While none of the seven member nations has started to develop a retail CBDC yet, the central banks of all of the member countries (the European Central Bank in the case of France, Germany and Italy) have demonstrated their intent to explore implementing one.

Read more: BIS Signals Central Banks to Start Work on CBDCs