Australian Reserve Bank says there is no need for a CBDC

As many of the world’s leading countries’ central banks continue their rush to be the first to launch their own CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), Australia seems to be absent from the race. In fact, according to its central bank, it seems to be taking Japan’s original stance on the idea of crypto, claiming that a CBDC is not needed.

The decision that a CBDC is unnecessary was revealed in a recent paper regarding payments, in which the central bank showed its skepticism of the benefits that a CBDC might bring. Not only that, but it also expressed strong concerns regarding private stablecoins, as well as how they might impact the monetary system.

The country already has a new payment platform, which allows transactions to be completed in real-time. With the new platform already out, there is no real reason to create and use CBDCs.

In addition to that, it appears that there is also no demand for a switch to cryptos, as Australians generally turned out to be less interested in switching to digital coins than other people. Even the COVID-19 pandemic did not change this. In fact, cash usage seems to have grown during the pandemic.

The bank itself decided that it will keep supporting banknotes for as long as the country’s citizens wanted to keep using them.

The bank also provided a brief commentary of other digital currencies that are near launch, such as Facebook’s Libra. It noted that there is still no proper regulation even for such coins. It also underlined multiple potential downsides of CBDCs.