Masayoshi Amamiya, deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, said today that central banks will not issue digital coins due to the fact that it might involve the disappearance of cash, and that's something they don't want to happen.
If central banks were to issue their own digital coins and apply negative interest rates on them, citizens and companies would simply continue to use cash in order to avoid the payment for owning digital coins.
This would mean that no government would be attracted by the idea of replacing cash with digital coins. According to him:
"Central banks would need to eliminate cash to overcome the nominal zero lower bound."
Negative interest rates basically appear when banks charge their users to hold their deposits. Japan started implementing this practice in 2016 together with the European Central Bank.
A large number of countries have announced their intention to launch their own government-backed digital currency. But, have they considered this?
According to what the deputy governor of the Bank of Japan has said, no central bank will issue a digital coin if it risks cash.
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