Assistant Governor Christian Hawkesby of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) confirmed on Wednesday that the board members “will be consulting extensively over the remainder of 2021 on issues key to the future of how New Zealanders pay and save, driven by its new stewardship mandate for cash and a broader currency system that supports the prosperity and wellbeing of New Zealanders, driven by its new stewardship mandate for cash and a broader currency system that supports the prosperity and wellbeing of New Zealanders.”
“”The first consultation will introduce and seek feedback on the broad concepts of money and cash stewardship and outline specific topics to be covered in the rest of the process,” “We’ll be considering not only what we should be doing as stewards, but also what a resilient and stable cash and currency system in New Zealand might look like, and how we might best respond to digital innovations in money and payments.” The potential for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to work alongside cash as government-backed money, issues arising from new electronic money forms such as crypto-assets (such as BitCoin) and stable coins (such as those proposed by a Facebook-led consortium), and how the cash system might need to change to continue to meet the needs of users will all be discussed in subsequent papers.”
“While most of us want to pay online, we know from research, feedback, and news reports that some communities, personal and retail customers are struggling with the loss of cash and in-person banking services, despite banks’ best efforts to assist them adjust.”
On the above headlines, the NZD/USD spiked to day highs of 0.7024, and is now trading at 0.7022, up 0.20 percent on the day./n
