ECB’s chief supervisor Daniele Nouy says the central bank will keep an eye on cryptocurrencies, but is not rushing to lay down regulations just yet, CNBC reports.
"We scrutinize the issue in a regulatory perspective, we are ready to do something if it was needed, but so far it's not exactly very high on our to-do list," the central bank's chief supervisor Daniele Nouy told CNBC.
On Monday, ECB President Mario Draghi said the bank's supervisory board was working to assess whether digital currencies posed any potential financial stability risk.
In a speech delivered to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Draghi added that European banks were showing "limited appetite" for digital currencies like Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin).
“We are not observing a systematically relevant holding of digital currencies by supervised institutions. Actually, credit institutions... are showing limited appetite for digital currencies, like Bitcoin.”
The comment from the ECB’s chair of supervisory board came ahead of an increasingly anticipated G20 Summit that is to be held in coming March in Argentina.
At the summit, cryptocurrency regulation shall form the main topic of discussion as reported by an increasing number of sources as well as the European Central Bank.