BoJ Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya said today the central bank has no plan to issue digital currency in the near future. And he disagreed to the idea that central banks can boost the effectiveness of negative interest rate policies by issuing digital currencies. “To overcome the nominal zero lower bound, central banks would need to eliminate cash,” Amamiya said. “Eliminating cash would make settlement infrastructure inconvenient for the public, so no central bank would do this.”
On the economy, Amamiya still expected to climb to 2% target. But he repeated BOJ wouldn’t hesitate to ease policy further if momentum to hit inflation target is disrupted. While downside risks are strong, he noted many global central bankers share the view that global economy will recover in the second half.
