Washington (US), July 16: U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Thursday that he was "legitimately undecided" on the benefits and costs of issuing a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).
"I think our obligation is to explore both the technology and the policy issues over the next couple of years. That's what we're going to do so that we're in a position to make an informed recommendation," Powell said during a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee when asked to clarify his position on the CBDC.
If the Fed were to issue a CBDC, "we would want very broad support in society and in Congress," Powell noted.
"And ideally, that would take the form of authorizing legislation as opposed to a very careful reading of ambiguous law to support this. It's a very, very important initiative," he said.
Powell's remarks came as the Fed plans to publish a discussion paper on the potential benefits and risks of issuing a U.S. CBDC this summer.
Many central banks are experimenting or at least conceptually thinking about rolling out digital versions of their currencies, and China is among the first large economies that has been pushing forward with its experiment.
China's central bank said earlier this month that it is confident of continuing to expand the pilot program of digital yuan for which the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics will be an important test scenario.
Currently, digital yuan service is offered mainly by invitation and the number of clients on the whitelist has reached 10 million, according to Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China.
Source: Xinhua