The Banque de France has just launched a call for candidates to select ten pilot virtual currency projects. The experiments should start this summer. A first test was even conducted in May. The institution wants to be at the forefront of thinking about the creation of a “digital euro”, under the aegis of the European Central Bank (ECB).
Read also: Libra: EU stands against Facebook's virtual currency project
A reflection that made leaps with the confinement and the explosion of the Covid-19 pandemic. The subject has interested central banks around the world, particularly in emerging countries, for about a year, spurred on by the Libra virtual currency project from Facebook. Isolated local experiments have been carried out in China or Sweden.
We must move methodically, step by step, without hurrying. When they develop, these virtual currencies will have to be consistent with each other and interoperable
Benoît Cœuré, head of the innovation pole of the Bank for International Settlements and former member of the Executive Board of the European Central BankThe confinement caused digital payments to explode, by contactless card or mobile phone, to the detriment of the circulation of cash (which does not prevent the tickets from having been hoarded under the mattresses at the same time). Distrust of the risk of contamination
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