The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) Assistant Governor Christian Hawkesby confirmed on Wednesday, 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.”
Key quotes
“We’ll be considering not only what we should be doing as steward, but 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 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 series. Subsequent papers will look at the potential for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to work alongside cash as government-backed money, issues arising from new electronic money forms including crypto-assets (such as BitCoin) and stable coins (such as proposed by a Facebook-led consortium), and how the cash system might need to change to continue to meet the needs of users.”
“While most of us are keen to pay electronically, we know from research we’ve published today, 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’ efforts to help them adapt.”
Market reaction
NZD/USD popped to daily highs of 0.7024 on the above headlines, now trading at 0.7022, up 0.20% on the day.