CBDC Conference 2021

With the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank announcing the world’s first CBDC based on blockchain technology, the CBDC activity level around the world continues to grow.

At Intergraf’s online event Simon Scorer, Senior Manager at the Bank of England, and Maureen Carroll, Managing Director of the Currency Department at the Bank of Canada, briefed attendees on the work their banks are doing regarding CBDCs. Although neither of those banks have made a decision about CBDCs, both were clear that cash will co-exist alongside the CBDC and that both are working through the policy and technical issues that need resolving to be ready should that decision be taken.

This plays well into the conference Beat Attinger is organising 3-5 October, ‘The CBDC Conference’. The website gives a taste of the speaker line up, although it only shows 22 of the 35 confirmed speakers at this stage. Virtually every bank that has piloted or issued a wholesale or retail CBDC will speak, along with central banks and organisations who are in the middle of this work – the Bank for International Settlements, the World Economic Forum.

The mix of central banks is interesting. Those who have launched and piloted (the Bahamas, Uruguay, South Africa, Cambodia), the Swiss National Bank, who prefers a token-based approach, and central banks that are investigating (the Bank of Canada, Bundesbank, Dutch National Bank, Bank of Finland, and Bank of Lithuania). There are more but these are not yet published.

On the other side are technology providers such as Accenture, ConsenSys and nChain, a number of academic and policy bodies and some commercial organisations such as Deutsche Bank and the Association of German Banks.

The presence of the European Commission and that the conference will be opened by the Secretary of State for the German Federal Ministry of Finance demonstrates the importance of the topic and the level of speakers brought together.

www.cbdc-conference.com