As far as I can tell this is a Central Bank Digital Currency, and as such has nothing to do with cryptocurrency at all. CBDC’s are basically just the central back extending the service they offer to major banks to now be accessible to everyday citizens.

The main advantage for the government is that it makes tax accounting easier for people and improves the economy by eliminating things like say the two percent additional private sales tax on credit cards or bank transfer fees.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting. I'm assuming this means you need an internet connection to make a transaction. Like Paypal or Venmo but run by the government. Or like a bank account run by the government (without loans or interest, etc.

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yep, that’s the basic idea. With Paypal and Venmo taking 3.4% of every transaction you end up with that being effectively being a sales tax that goes to private companies, and across an entire nation’s economy that tends to add up.

The actual form CBDC’s end up taking may very a bit though, as different countries implementations have tended to vary a bit while we figure out what works best, but I am curious to see what form you end up with.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I'm curious to see if we make any real progress by the end of the decade 😆

NZ already has electronic payment cards that are independent of credit card companies, called EFTPOS, that has been in use since the 80s. The cost off this for shops is a fraction of the cost of credit card transactions, starting somewhere like USD$10 per terminal per month for unlimited transactions of any size. Credit cards often take as much as 1-2% for Mastercard/Visa (the higher fee/higher reward cards US are often not accepted). In fact, credit card fees have become such an issue a large number of places will on-charge the fee to the customer.

If you're a small shop with one terminal paying $10 per month, it's not a cost that really matters. Unlike credit cards that often charge an annual fee to the user in addition to the transaction fee, EFTPOS cards are typically provided by banks free of charge. There is even competition in the space, with two different companies running EFTPOS systems.

Credit cards can generally also be used for EFTPOS so we don't even have to carry two cards around. Given this system, it would be interesting to see how much room there is for a central bank digital currency to improve on it.