Javier Guzmán Calafell: Some considerations on central bank digital currencies

Remarks by Mr Javier Guzmán Calafell, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Mexico, at the OMFIF Foundation - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis symposium "The next decade of finance: assessing priorities and implications for society, politics and economics", Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 9 July 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Before starting, I would like to express my sincere gratitude towards the organizers for their invitation to be part of this session's panel.

Historically, technological progress has been a major factor shaping the way in which societies, both within and between, interact across a myriad of dimensions. Of course, economic and financial relationships are among those more swiftly and deeply affected by the ensuing changes. The speed that this process has gathered in recent years, at the dawn of what some have dubbed the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", has had remarkable implications for our financial systems, from the way they function and their structural characteristics, to the nature of the partaking agents.

Naturally, this has underlined the importance that central banks, both in their role as participants and authorities in financial markets, remain aware and vigilant of the current state, as well as foreseeable trends, of relevant technologies. The objective should be to timely and orderly adapt to, and also benefit from, developments in this front.