The future of money
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The pandemic has given a nudge to the decline of cash. If that is the past - what is the future for our payments system? Could it simply be cards linked to bank accounts, handled via apps? Or could we be approaching a pivotal moment when the exciting (or maybe alarming) world of crypto and digital currencies take over? Central banks around the world are pondering this very question and are poised to launch their own digital currencies. Evan Davis and guests look into the future of money.
Guests:
Professor Catherine Mulligan, visiting lecturer at Imperial College, London and director of D-Central Lab at Lisbon University, Marcus Hughes, European managing director for Coinbase, a crypto trading platform Paige McCartney, senior business reporter at the Nassau Guardian
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.4 | Hello and welcome to a new series of The Bottom Line. |
| 0:08.9 | More than the year now, from the start of the pandemic, |
| 0:11.4 | we'll be using this series to think about life beyond. |
| 0:14.6 | We'll be looking for signs of an economic revival in the suburbs. |
| 0:18.3 | We'll be looking at cruise ships setting sail again and the transition |
| 0:22.9 | to a net zero carbon world. However, we kick off this new series by examining the future of money. |
| 0:30.3 | Because one thing the pandemic has done is give a nudge to the decline of cash, |
| 0:35.3 | perhaps not a nudge, more a shove off a cliff. |
| 0:38.3 | Those grubby notes and coins that some places won't even take these days. |
| 0:42.3 | But if cash is the past, what is the future? |
| 0:45.3 | These are exciting times. |
| 0:47.3 | Is it simply plastic debit and credit cards aligned to our ordinary bank accounts? |
| 0:52.3 | Albeit perhaps handled via apps. |
| 0:55.8 | Is it the exciting world of cryptocurrencies? Or is it new digital currencies and different |
| 1:01.0 | digital currencies, nothing to do with Bitcoin or Crypto? Well, these are turbulent times |
| 1:06.1 | with all to play for. We have central banks pondering on their own digital currencies, Facebook ready to launch one. |
| 1:13.2 | We have the cryptocurrencies with their market value gyrating wildly driven by speculator greed and fear. |
| 1:21.0 | So we shall talk through the direction the world may follow at this pivotal time for money. |
| 1:26.2 | And we'll keep it comprehensible with two guests who have |
| 1:28.8 | strong views on the topic, and let's meet them. First up, Professor Catherine Mulligan, |
| 1:33.8 | an expert on blockchain and digital transformation, a visiting lecturer at Imperial College, London, |
... |
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