The CEO of the international financial conglomerate Citigroup, Michael Corbat, reported on engaging with several governments to develop digital currencies.
Corbat believes that in the near future there will be “inevitable” independent digital currencies created with the participation of banks, so such assets will hardly be called “cryptocurrencies.” Citigroup began to study issues related to the development of digital currency and its introduction into circulation. However, Korbat did not disclose with which states the bank is cooperating to implement this initiative.
The Citigroup chief said the future of cryptocurrencies depends on the characteristics of each individual digital asset. For example, some crypto assets can be used to preserve value, others are often compared to gold, and still others are seen as an alternative to traditional finance. Some cryptocurrencies may even be able to become alternative means of payment.
Citigroup planned to launch its own cryptocurrency called Citicoin back in 2015 to make international transfers easier. But last year the bank abandoned this idea, explaining it by the high efficiency of other technologies. In addition, the bank plans to provide storage services for digital assets and has conducted internal testing for this.
Korbat said he worked at Citigroup for 38 years, serving as CEO for the past eight years. In February next year, he will leave the bank and hand over the baton to Jane Fraser, General Manager of Citi International Services.
Several years ago, Citi researchers presented a report on the benefits of a decentralized payment system, as well as on the challenges of introducing digital currencies into financial services. Analysts concluded that Bitcoin will make changes, but not destroy the financial system.
