When it comes to a central bank digital currency (CBDC), count Federal Reserve Board Gov. Christopher Waller – the payments chair at the Fed – as a continued skeptic, hearing “no satisfactory answer” to the question of what problem it may solve, he said Tuesday.
Speaking to the annual conference of The Clearing House (a trade group) in New York, Waller said nothing has changed in his view of the utility of a CBDC over the past three years.
He said that, in 2021, there was increased public discourse about whether the Fed should create a CBDC. He noted that the Fed was then compiling a report and seeking public comment on the potential benefits and risks of the idea.
“In a speech I gave in August 2021, I asked, what problem would a CBDC solve?” Waller said. “In other words, what market failure or inefficiency demands this specific intervention?
“In more than three years, I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer as applied to CBDC,” he said.
Waller is chairman of the Fed’s committee on payments, clearing and settlement.
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