Alibaba founder calls for reform of the financial system through digital currencies

Alibaba Group chairman of the board Jack Ma criticized global financial rules and called for a focus on innovation. The billionaire is confident that digital currencies will be an integral part of the new system, Bloomberg reports.

During his speech at the Bund Summit in Shanghai, he compared the Basel Accords, mandatory for banks, to a “club of old men”. He is dismayed that the world has focused on risk control rather than development. The billionaire believes that this often leads to overlooking opportunities for developing economies.

In Ma’s view, China can be counted among the “youth” in need of building an ecosystem for sustainable development. He is convinced that in the next 30 years the world will require a new type of financial system, whose backbone will be digital currencies.

“Digital currency can generate value, and we should think about how to create a new type of financial system with its help,” Ma said.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin asked what the Alibaba founder meant: cryptocurrencies or national digital currencies.

In response, Binance chief Changpeng Zhao diplomatically refrained from expanding on Ma’s literal words “digital currency,” which Ma had used. He added that he saw in this “stirring speech” in Chinese “pressing many buttons.”

The literal translation of the word he used is “digital currency”. In the Chinese culture, the meaning is up for interpretation. That’s pretty much as far as he can push without getting into serious trouble for such a speech. He did push a lot of buttons though. Respect!

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) October 25, 2020

In China, the authorities are aiming to be the first to issue a CBDC. They believe that winning this race would strengthen the yuan’s position in global markets, breaking the dollar’s dominance.

In October, the Chinese financial regulator put up for public consultation a proposed amendment to the Law on the People’s Bank. The amendments provide for the legalization of the digital yuan and prohibit the issuance of tokens tied to it.

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