It's closer to each individual bank having their own digital currency, all of which are worth 1 USD each. The digital US dollars at my bank are not directly exchangable with the digital US dollars at your bank. You need to settle up with an ACH transaction, which takes at least a day to transact as it has to run in a central batch job. In addition, only US domestic institutions can use this mechanism to transfer US dollars between themselves -- international institutions need to use the SWIFT system, which is multiple days for a transaction. Contrast with credit card payment and settlement, which acts closer to a digital system but can't be used as a store of value (and has punitive fees for attempting to do so). The US dollar acts like a cash system with some digital features rather than a digital system.
> The digital US dollars at my bank are not directly exchangable with the digital US dollars at your bank. You need to settle up with an ACH transaction, which takes at least a day to transact as it has to run in a central batch job.
FedNow will reduce that latency from days to minutes. US is slow in that game, but RTP is widely deployed in UK, France, etc.
For international transactions, one can use SWIFT (days) or TransferWise (minutes) or Western Union (under one hour).
I want my digital cash to work like regular cash. I need to pay the lawn guy, send an iMessage. I wanna buy lunch, swipe my phone and pay with the money in my phone. I don't need the charge going through my bank or some intermediary.
I want freedom to use my digital money the way I want without someone holding my account hostage, if I do something wrong. Additionally, I have no problem losing my money, if I send the money to the wrong person or lose my phone.
That's good usability-wise, but it still has the problem of central banks being able to create money (diluting your wealth for their benefit) and also being able to cancel you, or someone you want to pay, out of the system. It's a horribly powerful way to control people.
FedNow is a digital cash system. It's not there yet, and it's still not international. As for Western Union et al, it's a bit like claiming the US has a digital cash system because Venmo exists -- it's someone else taking on the risk the funds won't settle in order to provide a better user experience. So the US is approaching a digital cash system, but it's not there.
The bank does hold a fraction of your deposits, as our banking in the US is fractional reserve banking. This has been the case for quite some time, and isn't really the same thing as digital currency, even if we transact digitally.
From my understanding, they hold most of that in reserve accounts with the Federal Reserve. But yeah, someone at some point holds some cash. But of the total US money supply (in 2018), physical currency makes up about 11% of the total value[0].
Edit: Downvoted, and I'm guessing it's the source? This is legitimate fact though. Here's the fed's own announcement.
> In light of the shift to an ample reserves regime, the Board has reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective on March 26, the beginning of the next reserve maintenance period. This action eliminates reserve requirements for thousands of depository institutions and will help to support lending to households and businesses.
Where does the Fed get the money to be a lender of last resort - by printing the money and generating inflation? If so, then how does this inflation impact the purchasing power of these last resort dollars?
I often like to take things to a logical extreme. Since the Fed can simply print all this money into existence, is there a limit to their ability to print? I mean couldn't they simply print their way out of any economic crisis or would this result in another Weimar republic situation? -- genuine question.
Printing money does not always cause inflation. The purpose of the Fed is to keep the dollar's value stable. If demand for the dollar rises, the Fed has to print money to avoid deflation.
I don’t particularly want my dollars to “hold value”.
I want currency to be useful as currency; I want my investments to hold value. The two things serve different functions, and I don't want investments compromised to be useful as currency or vice versa.
Well, you make it sound like there's a limited number of dollar notes and the bank will refuse your deposit/loan if they don't have enough notes lying around to make the fractional requirements.
In reality, they will accept your deposit/loan (as long as it makes business sense) with no regard for how many notes they have lying around. If that puts them over the edge of the fractional requirements, they'll just go to the Fed/Treasury, who will swing their wand and write in additional (digital) reserves for the bank.
> they'll just go to the Fed/Treasury, who will swing their wand and write in additional (digital) reserves for the bank.
Pretty sure that's true for larger institutions and lending between themselves, but not for your everyday accounts. They must go to fed member banks themselves to ask for the loans.
This simply isn't how the financial system works. The bank will only loan out amounts based on what they hold in reserve. Asking the Fed/Treasury to "swing their wand around" isn't really close to what happens. Also, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are different entities.
They don't just "print money" for banks arbitrarily.
Printing money for banks arbitrarily is exactly what they do -- what they have to do, if they want to have any chance at meeting their target overnight rate. (Which they are.)
Demand for money comes from the market and is not very flexible, and certainly not under anyone's control. Lenders will meet the demand for money at ever increasing prices (i.e. higher overnight rates) unless money gets printed arbitrarily.
The US does not have reserve requirements; it has capital requirements. The fractional-reserve model is not a realistic description of banking in modern developed economies.
I don't have a strict definition handy, however it seems as though digital currencies would be those that are digitally based, whereas the dollar is a tangible currency first, even if it is fiat.
A digital currency would be like crypto currency, or in-game currencies or something designed to be digital. The dollar is the federal reserve currency, and not intended to be digital. It doesn't make sense to call it digital currency, when in fact it's physical currency first, and we've developed digital tools to help us use it and move it around.