ECB’s policymaker encourages EU banks to fight Libra with a cheaper payment solution

According to Jens Weidmann, who acts as the policymaker for the European Central Bank (ECB), as well as the President of Germany’s central bank — European banks should be careful with their response to Libra. He does not believe that the creation of a counter-solution, such as digital euro, is the right way to go about it.

Instead, Weidmann thinks that European banks
should create a faster, cheaper solution in order to keep their customers and
counter the benefits that Facebook’s Libra might offer.

In his interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt,
Weidmann stated that he does not think that the state should be always called
right away. Instead, companies should be the ones to develop an offer that
would satisfy customers’ requests. What this means is that he believes that
banks should first try to improve existing technologies, and define and
understand CBDCs, their pros, and their cons.

It is still too early for CBDCs

Weidmann thinks that it is still too early for…