Gillmore Centre Symposium on Central Bank Digital Currencies

Friday 7 May 2021, 14:00 - 16:00 (BST, GMT+1)

Organized by the Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology with the Bank of England

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are being developed and launched as digital forms of sovereign currencies worldwide. CBDCs have the potential to profoundly impact economies and reshape financial and payment systems globally.

This online symposium explores the latest developments in CBDC from industry, policy, and academic research perspectives.

Simon Collins, Mastercard: Ecosystem Orchestration & Implications for CBDC’s

Simon will discuss Mastercard’s learnings from managing the orchestration of multi-sided payment ecosystems and the principles that may be applied to developing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). His topics will include the importance of establishing sustainable Standards, creating structures to manage ecosystem participants effectively, driving improvement in the health and quality of the ecosystem, and placing the end-user experience and protections at the heart of any ecosystem design. These issues will be critical as CBDCs mature and provide an important area for further academic research.

Darrell Duffie, Stanford University: Perspectives on China's Digital Currency Electronic Payment System

This talk will overview some of the motives and implications of China's Digital Currency Electronic Payment System (DC/EP). What are the most likely motives for the introduction of DC/EP? To what extent might there be significant adoption of DC/EP technologies within offshore payment systems, use for cross-border payments, commercial advantages for China, or increased internationalization of the RMB? This talk will include an anonymous poll of participants' views on these and related issues.

Michael Kumhof, Bank of England: The Macroeconomics of Central Bank Issued Digital Currencies

We study the macroeconomic consequences of issuing central bank digital currency (CBDC) – a universally accessible and interest-bearing central bank liability that competes with bank deposits as a medium of exchange. In a DSGE model calibrated to match the pre-2008 US, we find that CBDC issuance of 30% of GDP, against government bonds, could permanently raise GDP by 3%, due to lower real interest rates, distortionary taxes, and monetary transaction costs. Countercyclical CBDC policy rules, as a second monetary policy tool, could substantially improve the central bank’s ability to stabilise the business cycle. Risks to banks can be minimized through appropriate issuance arrangements.

With

Professor Ram Gopal and Professor David Skeie

Simon Collins, Senior Vice President of Franchise Innovation at Mastercard

Simon Collins and his team leverage Mastercard’s extensive Standards-based infrastructure to successfully manage the Mastercard ecosystem’s continuous evolution.

Darrell Duffie, Adams Distinguished Professor of Management and Professor of Finance at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Darrell Duffie is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Duffie was the 2009 president of the American Finance Association. From October 2008 to April 2018, he was a member of the board of directors of Moody’s Corporation. He currently serves on the board of Dimensional Funds. From 2013-2017, Duffie chaired the Financial Stability Board’s Market Participants Group on Reference Rate Reform. Recently, he was project advisor to the G30 Working Group on Digital Currencies. Duffie’s research focus is the design and regulation of financial markets. His recent books include How Big Banks Fail (Princeton University Press, 2010), Measuring Corporate Default Risk (Oxford University Press, 2011), Dark Markets (Princeton University Press, 2012), and Fragmenting Markets, Post-Crisis Bank Regulations and Financial Market Liquidity (de Gruyter, forthcoming).

Michael Kumhof, Senior Research Advisor, Research Hub of the Bank of England

Michael Kumhof is responsible for co-leading the Research Hub of the Bank of England and for helping to formulate its research agenda. His previous position was Deputy Division Chief, Economic Modeling Division, IMF, where his responsibilities included the development of the IMF’s global DSGE simulation model, GIMF. His main research interests are monetary reform (including central bank digital currencies and full reserve banking), the macroeconomic implications of the fact that banks are creators of money rather than intermediaries of savings, the role of economic inequality in causing imbalances and crises, and the macroeconomic effects of fossil fuel depletion. Michael taught economics at Stanford University from 1998 to 2004. He worked in corporate banking, for Barclays Bank PLC, from 1988 to 1993. His work has been published by AER, JME, AEJ Macro, JIE, JEDC, JMCB, EER, and Journal of Macroeconomics, among others. Dr Kumhof is a citizen of Germany.