As part of the G20’s plan to improve cross border payments, the role of new payment infrastructures is being explored. These include new multilateral platforms, global stablecoins and central bank digital currency (CBDC). Today the BIS Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) published its paper on stablecoins.
It is one of the more painful BIS documents to read. That’s because the authors appear extremely concerned that readers might think they’re recommending stablecoins. Hence, they go overboard in pointing out stablecoin drawbacks. Often and repeatedly. And even while trying to outline potential benefits.
The tone is reminiscent of central banker responses to Facebook’s Libra / Diem stablecoin project. And the concern about stablecoins being deployed by BigTech is explicitly mentioned in the document. Ironically, one of the suggestions for future work is to explore multi-currency stablecoins, which was Libra’s first suggestion.
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