[2017-12-03] Bring Instant Payments to Beat Bitcoin, ECB Director Tells Banks

[cybersofts]

Bring Instant Payments to Beat Bitcoin, ECB Director Tells Banks

A European Central Bank director has called on banks to embrace instant payments to suppress the disruptive threat posed by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Speaking at an event in Rome, European Central bank director Yves Mersh dismissed digital currencies and called on retail, commercial banks to embrace instant payments to counter the rise of cryptocurrencies.

In quotes reported by Reuters, Mersh said:

    "Banks need to implement instant payments as soon as possible and provide an alternative narrative to the ongoing public debate on the alleged innovation brought by virtual currency schemes.

Mersh’s remarks echo those of another central banker in Jens Wiedmann, president of Germany’s Bundesbank, who called for banks to make existing payment systems more efficient and faster with instant payments. “I’m pretty confident that this will reduce most citizens’ interest in digital currencies,” Wiedmann said earlier in June.

Mersh also revealed initiatives by the European Central Bank (ECB) to “experiment with cash on different digital technologies” while claiming not to see any scope for “adventurous applications” of new innovative financial technologies, at least, by the central bank.

“We shall also experiment with cash on different digital technologies,” Mersh reportedly stated. “Other adventurous applications of a more disruptive nature are simply not robust enough.”

The ECB director joins a number of other colleagues in the same institution to offer their take on decentralized cryptocurrencies, in recent months. ECB executive board member Benoît Cœuré revealed that the ECB and other central banks “aren’t ignoring” cryptocurrencies.  ECB vice president Vitor Constancio weighed in to add that “so-called private cryptocurrencies can never prevail” over fiat currencies.

The most telling statement, however, came from the ECB’s president in late September. “t’s not within our powers to prohibit or to do something of the nature…or to regulate bitcoin,” ECB chief Mario Draghi admitted recently, confirming that the ECB had no authority, nor the power, to prohibit decentralized cryptocurrencies.

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bring-instant-payments-beat-bitcoin-ecb-director-tells-banks/

[Samarkand]

...
Mersh’s remarks echo those of another central banker in Jens Wiedmann, president of Germany’s Bundesbank, who called for banks to make existing payment systems more efficient and faster with instant payments. “I’m pretty confident that this will reduce most citizens’ interest in digital currencies,” Wiedmann said earlier in June.
...

Someone should tell these economists that people are drawn to Bitcoin due to its predictable monetary policy.
The predictable issuance of new coins combined with the hard cap of 21M BTC is the main feature of Bitcoin.

The problem with the current financial infrastructure is not the efficiency and speed of payments, credit
and debit cards work just fine for that.

[Kronos21]

It only emphasizes the fact that bankers do not understand the popularity of the cryptocurrency. They think that the minor inconvenience of using national currencies can regain confidence in them. They do not realize that the root of all the ills of the banking system in the unfairness of income distribution in the States.

[1Referee]

They don't get it. It isn't instant payments that make people go for crypto currencies. It's the fact that they don't have to deal with shitty banks and governments acting like they own everything. It's because people want to avoid being exposed to all destructive side effects of this broken on debt based system. It's freedom, which is something banks and governments can't offer to people. It makes me wonder whether they actually don't know what's going on, or they just act like they don't know it. It's not that difficult to understand the basic principles of Bitcoin, and especially shouln't be for those bankster kingpins.

[Samarkand]

... It makes me wonder whether they actually don't know what's going on, or they just act like they don't know it. ...

I think having studied economics for so long and having worked in the financial industry for decades can warp
your mind in a weird way.

If you have read stuff for decades that says that all currencies must be issued by a central authority you may already
be indoctrinated too deep to understand the Bitcoin design.

I think new generations will be raised with a different understanding and these old economists and banksters will simply die
in the next 1-2 decades anyway.

[hatshepsut93]

They don't get it. It isn't instant payments that make people go for crypto currencies. It's the fact that they don't have to deal with shitty banks and governments acting like they own everything. It's because people want to avoid being exposed to all destructive side effects of this broken on debt based system. It's freedom, which is something banks and governments can't offer to people. It makes me wonder whether they actually don't know what's going on, or they just act like they don't know it. It's not that difficult to understand the basic principles of Bitcoin, and especially shouln't be for those bankster kingpins.

Of course they get it, but they will never admit that they are the problem, so they use different tactics to stop people from using Bitcoin. They call it a bubble or fraud, they say that blockchain is useful but Bitcoin is not, now they want to offer "instant transactions" and some experimental digital cash, which will obviously be centralized and permissioned. They will keep criticizing Bitcoin for as long as they exist, because there's no place for them in Bitcoin's economy.