After short-term interest rates in major economies including Japan declined to virtually zero, the scope of the operational tools of monetary policy has expanded from a traditional way of “raising and cutting interest rates” to the area of unconventional policy tools such as the purchase of various financial assets. Therefore, please forgive me if some parts of my speech inevitably become somewhat technical. I.
By straddling the divide separating currencies from commodities and payment systems, digitalised private currencies inevitably raise legal and regulatory questions. Libra is no exception. To keep my speech short, I will only address three of these challenges, but rest assured that there are many more. The first challenge concerns Libra’s fundamental legal nature.