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Digital dollar as a mean to improve delivery of stimulus payments
The House Financial Services Committee (FSC) Task Force on Financial Technology held a virtual hearing titled "Inclusive Banking During a Pandemic: Using FedAccounts and Digital Tools..."
The committee evaluated how FedAccounts and other digital tools might help the federal government distribute stimulus payments to help Americans suffering the economic fallout of COVID-19.
Some bills were introduced to the committee suggesting that it would be better to use bank accounts managed by the Federal Reserve to deliver stimulus payments.
Previously, the U.S. government send one round of stimulus payment.
The issue being that large segments of the population didn’t have either bank account information with the IRS within the last two years or were otherwise reachable.
The government then decided to send physical checks to people, with the risk of delay and imprecision.
A possible solution through FedAccounts is that any U.S. resident could receive these funds rather instantly , instead of waiting for a their checks in the mail.
Some called for a token-based system rather than an account-based one.
This digitization of the dollar would profit not only the population in the current pandemic but would also "future-proof " it "for the coming digital 21st century when things of value will be increasingly tokenized, decentralized and programmable" as commented by J. Christopher Giancarlo, one of the witnesses for Thursday’s hearing.
The witnesses of the hearing include Giancarlo as Digital Dollar Project director; University of California Irvine School of Law Professor Mehrsa Baradaran; Vanderbilt University School of Law Professor Morgan Ricks and Electronics Transaction Association Jodie Kelley.
[GEN News -Editor ]
Ms. Camellia Sodki
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