Swiss National Bank still sees no case for central bank digital currency

ZURICH (Reuters) – The Swiss National Bank currently sees “no compelling advantage” to introducing digital central bank money for the general population, governing board member Andrea Maechler said on Thursday.

“We have taken quite a strong position,” Maechler told a Swiss Finance Institute event in Zurich, saying such a move could lead to the public holding accounts with the central bank as well as with commercial banks.

If customers became “worried or mad with a particular bank, you could transfer the money overnight to the SNB,” Maechler said. “This would add a lot of risk and volatility to the system which is ultimately not needed.”

(Reporting by John Revill, editing by Noele Illien)