While the Bank of England has been working on the development of central bank digital currency [CBDC], the Brits don’t seem to be too excited about it.
Central bank digital currencies have taken the financial world by storm. After digital assets like Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum [ETH] flourished, governments across the globe figured that they wanted something similar to these assets, however, less decentralized. While China took a plunge towards CBDCs and already developed the digital yuan, other countries were seen catching up.
The central bank of England seemed to be jumping onto the CBDC bandwagon, however, a recent survey noted that most of the Brits weren’t on board with the plan.
Brits are not so excited about CBDC
As per a survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for POLITICO, it was noted that British citizens were rather in suspicion about the launch of a CBDC instead of being excited.
Out of 2,500 participants, only about 24% of Brits believed that a CBDC would do good for society. However, 30% of the participants noted that these central bank assets would do no good to the UK. The fear surrounding cyberattacks was high and most of them [73%] expressed concerns about the same.
Alongside this, the participants suggested that they did not want the loss of payment privacy. Additionally, people were also worried about government authorities seizing their funds.
Furthermore, the Bank of England revealed interest in CBDC recently when the bank’s fintech chief, Tom Mutton said,
“Access to central bank money in the form of CBDC could support wider public policy objectives. These range from the possible benefits for competition and diversity in payments, through to opportunities to promote financial inclusion and safeguard privacy.”
Mutton noted that public trust was a major consideration in the development of a CBDC. However, with the aforementioned results, the central bank would have to try harder to garner “public trust.”