CBDCs ‘An Investment’ to Protect the Fiat System, Cash Will Disappear, Swedish Central Banker Says

cryptonews.com:

A central bank digital currency (CBDC) is “an investment” to protect the current fiat monetary system, according to a central banker from Sweden, who also argued that cash will soon be history.

Speaking at the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Forum on Central Banking in Portugal on Tuesday, Cecilia Skingsley, First Deputy Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, said it is necessary for central banks to develop CBDCs in order to address public demand and stay up to date with developments in the modern world.

“I see it as an evolution of the central bank role, rather than a revolution,” Skingsley said, adding that the days of using cash to pay for goods and services are numbered.

“I think cash will disappear as a payment method, that’s for sure,” the central banker said.

Ulrich Bindseil, Director General for Market Infrastructure and Payments at the ECB agreed with Skingsley, saying that “there is no reason” for central banks to not move into the digital age.

In support of the idea that central banks are in no way obligated to issue cash, Bindseil said that,

“Moving with time, accepting [the] digitalization of society, [and] rejecting the claim that central banks are natural issuers of bank notes only as a monetary liability.” 

The ECB official added that he sees efficient and reliable payment methods as “a basis of modern society,” while hinting that CBDCs will have a key role here.

Meanwhile, Markus K. Brunnermeier, a professor at Princeton University who was also part of the discussion panel, called privacy “one of the key issues” of a CBDC.

“We need a certain level of privacy for people to accept a CBDC,” he said, while admitting that cash is still the ultimate payment method for private transactions.

“Cash is free of a ledger, there is no