The Italian Banking Association (ABI) has shown its willingness to support a digital currency from the European Central Bank.
The ABI has approved official guidelines for governing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Founded in 1919, the Associazione Bancaria Italiana is a trade association, representing a group of banks in Italy. The Association comprises 707 members.
The ABI stated:
Digital money needs to be fully trusted by citizens. To this end, it is essential that the highest standards of regulatory compliance, safety and supervision are adhered to.
The Executive Committee of the ABI has agreed on ten fundamental criteria to issue the digital euro.
The Association stated in the published guidelines that it been studying in depth digital coins and crypto assets since last year. The ABI indicated that Italian banks have already been operating on a Distributed ledger technology (DLT) infrastructure under the Spunta project, set in place by the Assosication to speed up the transaction speed within the member banks using blockchain.
The ABI also expressed its belief that a digital currency in the European Union could replace the need for other cryptocurrency.
The existence of such an instrument could at the same time reduce the attractiveness of instruments of comparable use but issued by private individuals or (in cases of complete decentralization) which are not identifiable, characterized by an inherently higher risk profile.
