Lead of ConsenSys South Africa said:

“Who’s gonna use the euro in its current form? There are gonna be so many choices”

ECB not in a good situation

The European Central Bank ECB will be putting itself in jeopardy if it waits around a digital euro too long, according to an executive at major cryptocurrency firm ConsenSys.

Monica Singer, lead of ConsenSys South Africa joined in at the European Blockchain Convention to discuss the role of the private sector in shaping global central bank digital currencies, or CBDC.

She then spoke of the benefits and opportunities of CBDC in a Monday panel with BNP Paribas CIB digital transformation leader Dean Demellweek and Philipp Sandner, a professor at the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center.

Singer with 18 years of service as CEO at South Africa’s central securities depository, Strate, — believes that the existing financial system is far from perfect.

In the past four months, cryptocurrency has taken its nonstop ATH to a totally whole new level and with a lot of steam to go.

Executive’s insights about it

According to the ECB exec, the current financial system is broken due to the many mediators, and initiatives like a CBDC is a chance for central banks to repair their mistakes.

As such, CBDC can help the globe to bank the unbanked as well as unlocking more low-cost ways to get access to money for the private sector and end-customers, Singer noted.

If global banks miss this opportunity, alternatives from private tech giants like Facebook could make fiat currencies obsolete, she said:

“If the ECB is gonna wait until 2028, by then there won’t be a central bank. Because who’s gonna use the euro in its current form? There are gonna be so many choices.”

As previously reported, the ECB is expected to decide whether to begin experimenting with a digital euro by mid-2021.

Thus, Lagarde believes that the acquisition of a European CBDC would take at least four years. Meanwhile, some other countries like China have been actively experimenting with a Central Bank Digital Currency since April 2020.