The CEO of Southeast Asia’s largest bank, DBS, says cryptocurrency “can be an alternative to gold.” He added that regulating crypto “out of the formal banking system is an unwise thing to do.”
DBS’ CEO on Cryptocurrency and Regulation
Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS Bank Group, spoke about cryptocurrency regulation and the new economic times global business summit. DBS is Southeast Asia’s largest bank by assets. Gupta, quoted in The Economic Times, said:
I don’t think that cryptocurrencies will become money as we know it, but it can be an alternative to gold and its value.
“The other big challenge [of cryptocurrencies]Volatility in value. If you want to use this to pay for something, you don’t know what it’s costing you,” he elaborated. “Today cryptos are a potential source of speculated value, it’s unlikely that this is a source of money as we know it.”
According to him, central banks all over the world should look into introducing cryptocurrency in the regulated market. He said:
As you want to move it beyond the traditional banking system, it is not wise to regulate it.
“Nobody knows who owns private money, so it is subject to misuse,” he stressed, adding that this issue is what the governor of the Indian central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), is so concerned about. He added, “monetary systems across the world have flagged off AML and KYC issues pertaining to crypto.”
DBS’s CEO spoke out about digital currency central banks (CBDCs). Noting that “CBDCs come with its own set of challenges, if you go direct, every citizen opens a direct account with the central bank and it disburses the CBDC directly,” the CEO described:
The downside of this is it will disintermediate the existing banking system, therefore you make the process of credit creation the onus and responsibility of the central bank alone and they don’t want that.
Gupta’s Bank, DBS, has been offering cryptocurrency services to some clients for quite some time. A full-service exchange for digital assets was launched by the bank in December 2020. It has experienced rapid growth in its cryptocurrency business since that time. According to the bank, it will soon offer crypto trading to retail investors.
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