Speaking in a keynote address on September 23, Loretta Mester emphasized that the Federal Reserve has been exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDC) since before the pandemic, noting that its Board of Governors has been “building and testing a range of distributed ledger platforms to understand their potential benefits and tradeoffs.”
Despite the ongoing research, Mester asserted that the initiatives do not “signal any decision by the Federal Reserve to adopt such a currency,” adding that issues related to “financial stability, market structure, security, privacy, and monetary policy all need to be better understood.”
Looking ahead, Mester emphasized the importance of “making necessary investments to ensure that the U.S. payments system remains resilient in the face of extreme stress events will need to remain a priority.”
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