Great to contribute to this article by the Paymetn Association on the digital pound!
Programmability is a hotly contested feature of central bank digital currencies! The ECB opting not to include it in the digital euro while the Bank of England wants it for the digital pound. I think the BoE gets it right!
My take on CBDC programmability:
“People look at programmability as potentially harmful, but the reality is more nuanced,” says Richard Turrin, author of ‘Cashless: China’s Digital Currency Revolution’. “We already have programmable money, for example, the US hands out debit cards for food assistance, and those debit cards expire if you don’t use them within a matter of six months.
“If you take that food assistance card and you take it to a gun store, and you try to buy a pistol with it, guess what? It won’t work,” adds Turrin. “So, programmability gets a very bad reputation, but in fact, it is already in use; people want it, and find it quite logical.”
Link to the full article: here
