A new report by Ripple indicates a high level of interest in the crypto industry among financiers. Over the next three years, three-quarters of financial institutions around the world expect to increase their ability to use cryptocurrency assets.
Ripple’s latest report, New Value: Crypto Trends in Business and Beyond, points to the high interest of financial institutions in crypto-assets. For example, 76% of financial and credit institutions worldwide plan to integrate crypto-assets into their business if a regulatory framework is developed.
More than 1,600 financial sector executives from 22 countries participated in the study. Analysts at Ripple asked questions about the prospects for distributed ledger technology (DLT), central bank digital currencies (CBDC), and non-fungible tokens (NFT).
It is worth noting that financial institution executives expressed a strong interest in CBDCs first — 85% of respondents believe their countries will be able to launch state-owned digital currencies and develop regulatory frameworks for using them within the next four years. The high interest in CBDCs is primarily due to the potential impact of the new asset class on the financial sector. Most respondents agree that government digital currencies can:
- provide financial inclusion;
- increase payment efficiency;
- enhance international competitiveness;
- strengthen monetary policy;
- hedge inflation.
Recall that the U.S. Department of the Treasury recently said that the CBDC is able to increase the banking system’s stability.
Meanwhile, according to the study, cryptocurrency adoption initiatives in the business sector differ from region to region. The leaders were financial and business executives in the Latin American region (LATAM), where 82% expect the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the next five years, as well as representatives of the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), where 83% of the financial sector welcomed the crypto initiatives. In Europe, only 64% of financiers are interested in digital assets.
Recall that several global financial institutions continue to study and experiment with central bank digital currency, seeking to design their CBDCs with possible interoperability in the future.
