Japan starts looking at issuing Digital Currency

Japan is the latest country to reveal its intentions to launch a digital currency, Reuters to the reported recently.

Norihiro Nakayama, the country parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs, has revealed that the digital yen would keep Japan up to date with the global developments in the world of the financial sector and could be a joint initiative between the private and government companies.

As of now, four out of five purchases in Japan are made via cash. The latest digital currency efforts can be seen as an effort to bring the country more in step with its neighbors in the region of Asia Pacific.

With China announcing plans last year to launch a digital Yuan, Japan would like to propose measures to counter such attempts, notes the report.

Major Opinions

In Reuters report, a key member of the group comprised of about 70 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, Nakayama, said, "The first step would be to look into the idea of issuing a digital yen. China is moving toward issuing digital yuan, so we’d like to propose measures to counter such attempts."

Former BOJ board member Takahide Kiuchi said, "The BOJ probably won’t want to do anything that would stifle private-sector innovation. The best way could be to issue a hybrid-type digital currency that is operated and issued by private firms, with the central bank’s involvement."

Japan Digital World

A group of lawmakers of governing the Liberal Democratic Party plans to submit its proposal to the Japanese Government as early as next month.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is also a part of Central Bank that has joined together last week to share points of view in assessing potential cases for centrally digital currencies, which even included the European Central Bank and Bank of England.

Central Banks have been spurred into the curb of action by the launch of Facebook’s controversial Libra Project.