Japan must swiftly revise laws to allow the central bank to issue a digital currency, a move that could provide a chance to reform the Bank of Japan's existing mandates and enshrine its inflation target, a senior ruling party official said Monday.
Kozo Yamamoto, head of the Liberal Democratic Party's council on financial affairs, said the BOJ risked being overtaken by private players who could launch their own digital currencies that could undermine the yen. "If something too convenient pops up from the private sector, people might start to doubt whether they need yen as a currency unit. We must prevent this from happening," he said. "This is fundamentally about protecting Japan's currency sovereignty."
Yamamoto said he would prod the government and relevant agencies to speed up efforts to draft a revised BOJ law and other necessary legislation for issuing central bank digital currencies (CBDC).