Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, regards the adoption of digital currency as “absolutely inevitable.” He says there is a role for private and state-backed digital currencies. Subsequently, his bank announces that it is launching a crypto custody service, supporting a number of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and ethereum.
Standard Chartered Bank CEO Sees Opportunities in Cryptocurrencies
Standard Chartered chief executive officer Bill Winters shared his views on digital currencies at Singapore’s annual Fintech Festival this week. Headquartered in London, Standard Chartered is a large financial services company in the UK with around 1,026 branches worldwide.
Winters was appointed Chief Executive of Standard Chartered PLC Group in June 2015 and Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Bank in April last year. Starting his career with JP Morgan, he was formerly an adviser to the British Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards.
The CEO of Standard Chartered Bank quoted from CNBC on Monday:
I think there is a role at all for central bank digital money as well as central bank sponsored digital money.
He noted that the introduction of digital currency would be led by private entities and backed by the government, adding that his bank would soon be publishing some news “along these lines.”
Following its comments, Standard Chartered announced Wednesday that it has partnered with asset servicing provider Northern Trust to launch a cryptocurrency custodian service for institutional investors. The platform plans to support bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, litecoin, and bitcoin cash.
Winters further explained at the Fintech Festival that he saw the greatest opportunity in digital currency in “new niche segments that do not emulate fiat currency,” the news outlet conveyed. “The really interesting development for me is to have a currency that is not cash equivalent in itself, but which is intended to capture either a subset overlay,” the CEO described.
Winters gave an example that digital money could be created for specific projects, such as trading in the voluntary carbon market, and consumers can be confident that the funding behind them is “checked, standardized, [and] monitored. ”
He stressed: “Those kinds of applications for digital currency, and creating a digital currency ecosystem, are something that can’t be imitated by fiat currency, or, most likely, central bank digital currency anytime soon … I think. there is a whole new world that is opening for us. ”
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