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France is looking to experiment with building its own central bank digital currency in 2020, according to local reports.
Speaking at ACPR today, French central bank governer François Villeroy de Galha said he wants France to be the first country to issue a digital currency.
He said that there are three advantages to building a digital euro. First, it could guarantee customer access to central bank money, where cash is losing ground. Second, it could be more efficient to tokenize the euro, particularly for settlement and post-market activities. Third, he said it would keep the sovereignity of central banks in light of rivals like Facebook's Libra.
« Je vois un intérêt à avancer rapidement sur l’émission d’au moins une monnaie digitale de banque centrale de gros afin d’être le 1e émetteur au niveau international et tirer les bénéfices réservés à une monnaie digitale de banque centrale de référence », F. Villeroy de Galhau
— Banque de France (@banquedefrance) December 4, 2019
This comes as China continues to develop its digital Renminbi, the European Central Bank looks into its own digital currency and governments around the world are playing much closer attention to blockchain technology.
This story is developing.