ANZ Bank does away with cash; Australian Dollar responds with volatility

There are those who look forward to the day when the entire society in which they live goes completely cashless, and there are those who regard such a possibility with absolute dread.

Many nations with developed and advanced financial markets ecosystems are now heading toward the next stage in the implementation of a fully digital ecosystem, and in a lot of cases, their respective governments and central issuers of fiat currency are talking about the implementation of what is known as CDBCs, an acronym that stands for Central Bank Digital Currencies.

Central Bank Digital Currencies are effectively digital versions of existing sovereign currency, and many nations in Europe, North America, and South East Asia are looking at developing them and rolling them out. Australia is one such nation.

Whilst the rollout of such CDBCs has not taken place yet, there is more than a degree of speculation regarding the possibility of such a move being made by the Australian central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia.

This speculation is being fueled by a recent move by ANZ Bank, one of Australia’s largest Tier 1 financial institutions and the country’s largest institutional and corporate bank.

At the end of last week, ANZ Bank announced that it would cease facilitating withdrawals and deposits from a number of its Australian branches on a permanent basis...More  info:  blog  FXOpen