The close interrelation between stable-coins and central bank digital currencies – due to their common transactional and store-of-value purposes, which are such that they may either complement or replace each other – warrant the importance placed on maintaining a holistic view of the payments sector.
The late Curzio Giannini, my former colleague and author of one of the most insightful books on the history of central banks (The Age of Central Banks, 2011, 2004 in Italian), argued that “in the case of money, the definition moves around the concept of payment technology: the set of conventions, objects and procedures that make possible the extinction of the relevant obligations of the exchange activity”.