French Central Bank Chief Tastes Public-Private Partnership for Probable Digital Euro

The Chief of France’s Central Bank has articulated of the potential benefits of private sector involvement in the development & issuance of a forthcoming European digital currency.

• Francois Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Banque de France, supposed in a speech Friday that a public/private partnership would be the most acceptable way to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to retail users.
• His commentaries were made at a conference held by the German central bank – the same event where the chief of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, thought Thursday that the European Union had tumbled behind on CBDC development globally.
• Both France & Germany have been determined adversaries to overseas companies, like Facebook, launching digital currencies that could compete with fiat money.
• France’s finance minister, Bruno le Maire, held previous September his government would push to have libra banned from European soil.
• While Villeroy de Galhau didn’t mention Facebook by name, he supposed the EU was already critically dependent on Big Tech firms for payments.
• Left unchallenged, he said, they could shut out governments and central banks from having any monetary role in their own countries.
• Rather than compete with private companies, Villeroy de Galhau said that “appropriate synergies” between them and the public sector could lead to a better-designed CBDC being put into circulation one day.
• This mirrors commentaries from the Bank of England previous this year, which held private companies could resolve any inadequacies in the existing payments system with commercial solutions.
• The Banque de France is currently working with eight companies, including Accenture and HSBC, to explore the regulatory and financial ramifications of launching a CBDC.

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