The Covid-19 pandemic has expanded the role of e-commerce and electronic-payment technologies. The heads of 26 central banks of Central Asia, the Black Sea region and the Balkans said in an online meeting.
In the long run, the crisis triggered by the pandemic will raise debt burdens and financial vulnerabilities of states. For this reason, financial regulators are actively studying the question of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
“When considering the issuance of a digital currency, any central bank must assess its impact on monetary policy and financial stability, and consider how to warn and minimize cyber risks,” the participants of the meeting said.
Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) took part in the discussion.
In June, the BIS said that it was the COVID-19 pandemic, not stablecoins, that was pushing governments to pursue CBDCs.
In October, the Bank of Russia released a report on the possibility of creating a digital ruble. The aim is for the new asset to supplement existing forms of money pegged to the value of the national currency.
The regulator plans to gather feedback on this issue by the end of the year.
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