DBS Bank Group CEO Piyush Gupta said cryptocurrencies and their regulation. DBS is the largest bank in Southeast Asia regarding assets, said Gupta at the recent Economic Times Global Business Summit.
According to the CEO of DBS, Cryptocurrency, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, “maybe a substitute to gold.” He went on to say that regulating crypto “outside of the official banking system is a bad idea.”
Gupta further said: “I don’t think that cryptocurrencies will become money as we know it, but it can be an alternative to gold and its value.”
“The second major issue with cryptocurrencies is their price volatility.” “If you want to use this to pay for something, you have no idea how much it will cost you,” he explained. “Today, cryptos are a possible source of speculative value; nonetheless, this is unlikely to be a source of money in the traditional sense.”
Central banks throughout the globe should explore bringing cryptocurrencies into the regulated arena, according to the executive. He explained: Regulating it outside of the conventional banking system is a bad idea because it will push it out into the unregulated realm, where there will be no way to provide any safeguards.
“No one knows who owns private money, therefore it is vulnerable to misappropriation,” he said, adding that this is an issue that the governor of India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), is particularly worried about. “Monetary systems all around the world have recognized AML and KYC concerns relating to crypto,” he continued.
The CEO of DBS also discussed central bank digital currency (CBDCs). “CBDCs come with their own set of issues,” the CEO explained, “but if you go direct, every citizen establishes a direct account with the central bank, and it disburses the CBDC immediately.”
Gupta’s bank, DBS, has been selling cryptocurrency services to select clients for quite some time. In December 2020, the bank established a full-service digital asset exchange. The platform’s crypto business has increased since then. In February, the bank said it would begin offering crypto trading to retail clients this year.
