The Swiss National Bank and the Bank for International Settlements recently caught headlines with their announcement of a joint innovation hub in Basel. Now it has emerged who will take charge of the project.
Today’s announcement shows that the innovation hub in Basel is a high-priority project: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) appointed Benoît Coeuré as head of the project group in Basel. Coeuré is currently an executive board member and head of payment systems at the European Central Bank (ECB).
The hub, jointly operated by the BIS and the Swiss National Bank (SNB), will evaluate how digital central bank money could be employed in the trading of digital assets. The project is also key to the development of the Swiss digital exchange (SDX), currently under development at the stock exchange operator SIX.
The Challenge From Libra
The digital central bank money is a far cry from Libra, the global currency project by Facebook. The U.S. company wants to make global payments between end-users more smooth, while the central banks look into a digital transaction currency between banks only.
Still, BIS head Augustin Carstens welcomed the challenge from Libra in the sense that it forced the BIS to reconsider and not to neglect the issue, he was quoted as saying by «FT Alphaville» (behind paywall).
No Need for Undue Revolution
Still, Carstens is convinced that there is no need for a technological solution for systems that work well, adding that «many problems are not of a technologic nature.»
Coeuré, an experienced central banker, knows perfectly well how important it is to keep markets in a steady equilibrium. His team will have to show that the central bank innovators are fast enough in their quest to prevent a Libra-induced revolution.
