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Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

bankofengland.co.uk

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Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#111

Post by mytailorisrich »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #103
mytailorisrich wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's literally how the BoE works Not, it's not. It seems you and others are confused here and do not understand what is meant by "digital currency". Digital currencies, like what is discussed and e.g. the "digital yuan" in China, it to create real digital bank notes / coins. Not expert by I think similar to a crypto token. It means I can hold a digital bank note and pay you by transferring it to you. This is very…

You say, "Real, digital bank notes" but really, they are just numbers that you can write down if you want. That number is worthless unless you do the digital transfer (ie telling bank/service to do something). Realistically, it is no different. I can do all of this stuff with a bank, and person to person transfers are easy where I'm at. You are still interacting with a company or government to move your money around…

"Digital currency" is a wide term. At one extreme it can be a token that can be used anonymously and without the need for a bank in the same way coins and bank notes are today: As long as people are satisfied that they are genuine they are happy to accept them as payment.

The point being is that what is referred to as "digital currency" is not what we have now (otherwise the BoE and others would not be studying feasibility and costs/benefits). In that sense currency is not digital at the moment. Bank ledgers and transfer instructions are.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#112

Post by selfhoster11 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #80
jfjfntntkt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me how I can transfer one pound from me to you using a 20 line Python script? That's what people mean by digital currency. If you are going to mention the open banking API initiative, then what are the requirements to get access to that? You can't as an individual. Also, this was the easy case, inter-UK. Now tell me how to transfer using Python and without applying to all kinds of regulators for API acces…

> open banking API initiative as you've alluded to, its not open to consumers, only financial institutions, with good reason. It gives you lots of access to do all sorts of things. > how I can transfer one pound from me to you using a 20 line Python script? Now this isn't a usecase I had thought about. I mean there are APIs that I can use to interface to a specific bank that will allow me to do this. But they are hid…

> as you've alluded to, its not open to consumers, only financial institutions, with good reason. It gives you lots of access to do all sorts of things.

How so? There's no reason a bank account shouldn't be programmable. If the worry is fraud and account hacks, that already happens when the computer is compromised or people get scammed.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#113

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #108
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems you and others are confused here and do not understand what is meant by "digital currency" You started of staying "currency is not digital", a broad statement about which I don't think there's any confusion, it's just flat-out incorrect. If it's not digital then what is it then, analogue? Now you're talking about a particular form of digital token, which OK, maybe currency isn't that, and the usefulness of…

Guys, please try to read about "digital currency" before writing snarky replies and downvoting. Currency is currently not digital in the sense meant here. Otherwise the BoE and other central banks would not discuss the possibility of issuing digital currency. It's rather the banks' ledgers and transfer instructions that are digital. In my previous comment I have only tried to explain what CBDC is. Perhaps I did not d…

Your statement was "Currency is not digital." - digital, full stop. Which is a nonsense. The word "digital" is well-defined.

It seems that you're now saying that "BoE Currency is not digital currency." with a specific meaning of "digital currency" separate from the definition of "digital" or "currency".

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#114

Post by [deleted] »

rvense wrote: post #76
KaiserPro wrote: post #30

I've not really understood the need for a "digital" pound, the pound is pretty digital already. I can already have an entirely digital bank account from at least three "challenger" banks. There are also now at least two business accounts that also entirely virtual. "Faster Payments" (customer bank transfers) are delivered in seconds. I can see a need for speeding up BACS, and reducing the price of CHAPS, but apart fr…

Money is infrastructure, and the digitization of money has resulted in the privatization of that infrastructure. I don't think that was ever part of the plan, really, as far as the government goes.

[deleted]

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#115

Post by xyzzy123 »

zzzzzzzza wrote: post #83
KaiserPro wrote: post #30

I've not really understood the need for a "digital" pound, the pound is pretty digital already. I can already have an entirely digital bank account from at least three "challenger" banks. There are also now at least two business accounts that also entirely virtual. "Faster Payments" (customer bank transfers) are delivered in seconds. I can see a need for speeding up BACS, and reducing the price of CHAPS, but apart fr…

uhm... physical cash is an anonymous payment system?

It looks that way until you try to put a lot of it in a bank or turn it into "big people money" aka capital. Roughly at that point governments would like to have some idea of who you are.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#116

Post by oblio »

veltas wrote: post #64
oblio wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not a micro-optimization such as using base 10 or base 12. The problem is that we can't all agree on a common measurement system and the biggest economy in the world stubbornly keeps using an archaic and sub-optimal system that it's actively pushing onto the rest of us. For example, instead of having screen details in sqcm (and aspect ratios), we have inches (and maaaaybe aspect rations mentioned somew…

Historically, metric was the thing being pushed.

The "pushing" isn't the problem.

The nature (good/bad) of the thing being pushed is. The imperial system is objectively inferior since the metric system has been created.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#117

Post by tim333 »

nosianu wrote: post #36
marcus_holmes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents grew up with the "old money", and my father in particular always said that it was easier to work with because everything divided by 2,3 or 4 easily. His opinion was always that the new money was introduced to make computerisation easier. In other words, the benefit wasn't for humans (who prefer working in 12's), but for computers.

That does not make sense to me, since computers "native" numbers are not binary and the layer on top would not care one bit if it converts the binary representation to whatever base. Not to mention that the wide-spread use of the decimal system among humans happened long before computers where even dreamed of. So those things point to the decimal system adoption having been made for humans and not for computers. Coun…

It's popular for time. See you in an an hour rather than in 0.041666 days.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#118

Post by ObserverNeutral »

synnejye wrote: post #105
ObserverNeutral wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan tried this in the 90s with expiring vouchers, results were subpar. The bailwick of Jersey sent citizens a prepaid card with £100 expiring in 6 monhts which was also disabled for ATM withdrawls during 2020. Again moderate results. Money is a unit of account, if you mess with it people adjust quickly, there is no free lunch. It's not the same as giving Wellbutrin+Ritalin to somebody who is depressed.

Then they must have be doing something wrong? Obviously people would not be foregoing free money if it was easy to get. You are arguing that people would not spend "free" 100 usd on their rent if the money/voucher was directed towards rent.

"How bad things must be if the government resorts to giving us free money with an expiration date to force us to spend? I'll spend my 100$ card before it expires but I'll save extra 200$ of my salary compared to before. I have to brace for the worst that it's yet to come, it's going to be really bad before it gets better, especially given that the Government is resorting to giving us free money "

The more you use extreme measures to force people to do what they don't want, the more they'd refuse to do so.

When people are scared and paralyzed by fear, messing with the unit of account won't calm their worries, if anything given how out of the ordinary it is, it could be argued that it makes things worse.

Money is external, people pick the scheme apart rather quickly and you end up worse than before because now you look desperate to force them to do what you want

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#119

Post by tim333 »

leg100 wrote: post #68
codeulike wrote: post #8

They should make it work on the 'old money' system of penny, shilling and pound, with twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to the pound, then use the abbreviation 'd' for pence, and then throw in farthings (quarter penny) and half-crowns (two shillings and six pence) because if there's one thing I've learnt about finance, its that the more confusing things are, the easier it is to make a profit.

Don't forget the guinea: equal to a pound and a shilling, or 21 shillings, for the purposes of bidding for a racehorse.

Also the British Sovereign with a nominal value of a pound an an actual value of about £320 judging by ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524...

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#120

Post by rvense »

dools wrote: post #62
KaiserPro wrote: post #30

I've not really understood the need for a "digital" pound, the pound is pretty digital already. I can already have an entirely digital bank account from at least three "challenger" banks. There are also now at least two business accounts that also entirely virtual. "Faster Payments" (customer bank transfers) are delivered in seconds. I can see a need for speeding up BACS, and reducing the price of CHAPS, but apart fr…

The important distinction is that currently all cashless payment systems are privately run for profit which is effectively a regressive transaction tax.

It's also just a control thing. When private enterprises control (and create) money, they will do so based on their own interests. These might not align with the best interests of society at large.
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