(Finance) – The sector financial makes more and more extensive and significant use of the potential offered by digitization, in which the application of decentralized technologies (the so-called distributed ledger technologies – DLT) and the activities and services relating to crypto-assets. This is what the Bank of Italy in an official communication.
“The Bank of Italy – explains the note – is interested in these issues in the exercise of its multiple functions: of check prudential on supervised intermediaries; from surveillance the regular functioning of the payment system; to safeguard monetary and financial stability; of contrast to recycling and the financing of terrorism; of customer protection. “The Communication is addressed to intermediaries supervisedto supervised subjects and to those who operate in various capacities in decentralized ecosystems, including as users, with the aim of recalling the opportunities and risks associated with the use of the aforementioned technologies in finance and operations in crypto-assets, highlighting some relevant profiles for their supervision.
“The crypto-assetsin particular, they can generate risks of various kinds also due to the fact that they are still widespread deregulated. Their rapid and widespread diffusion could compromise the stability of the financial system due to the interdependence of the subjects participating in it, whether regulated or not, as well as the lack of controls and tools that can limit the effects of events unfavorable – underlines the communication -. In this context, crypto-assets without any intrinsic value, not referring to any activity of the real or financial economy, not supported by any right of the user to receive anything back, cannot, as such, be suitable to carry out a function neither of payment nor of investment: for this reason, and for the risks that characterize them, their use should not be encouraged in any way “.
Work is underway at an international and European level to design a new set of rules and controls for these products and the related “ecosystems” but their full implementation will still take time. From this point of view, the Communication, explains Via Nazionale, intends to constitute a useful reference both pending the complete definition of the European regulatory framework and subsequently to it, also taking into account that some actors and technological solutions will not be included in the scope of application. of the new rules.
“The Bank of Italy will continue to collaborate in the various international and European offices that deal with these issues, to monitor – in conjunction with the ECB and with the other authorities of check national – the trend of the crypto-assets market and the evolution of the use of decentralized technologies in finance, to strengthen the dialogue with market operators also to promote initiatives aimed at defining standards and best practices that can constitute a point of reference shared; this with the aim of supporting the development, in the context of the financial and payments system, of virtuous and adequately supervised innovation, mitigating the risks that it can entail and maximizing the benefits that can derive from it to the advantage of the economic system and of the players that make it up: consumers, families, businesses, public administration bodies “, concludes the note.