Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 12
By Azad Hasanli – Trend:
Countries of CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) have great potential to use e-money in international trade, Ruslan Makarov, Russian professor, cryptocurrency and e-money expert, said in an interview with Trend.
“This issue is much more topical than all other economic initiatives,” Makarov, who is also an expert of the Mikhail Khazin Economic Research Foundation, said. “Macroeconomics, including that of the CIS countries, has exhausted its possibilities. Monetary policies, both in individual countries and at the global level, only lead to the emergence of new crises. Therefore, appearance of new monetary relations could solve current economic and financial problems.”
The expert noted that no banks or SWIFT system will be necessary for e-monetary relations, so such institutions as the US Federal Reserve System won’t participate in the process.
At the same time, countries like Azerbaijan don’t have legislation which regulates relations among cryptocurrencies, e-money and population, therefore, formation of legislation at this stage should become one of the priority tasks, the expert said.
“In the case of Azerbaijan, there is one important point that I haven’t seen in other countries: here, both the government and society are ready for the introduction of e-money,” he added. “Usually, either the government blocks such initiatives or the society is not ready for their use, but in Azerbaijan, the situation is quite different.”
Emergence of e-money should not be perceived as a threat to central banks, Makarov said.
“It is more correct to say that the introduction of e-money will make central banks operate under new conditions,” he noted. “The Directive 2009/110/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council divides functions of financial technology companies and banks – financial technology companies cannot deal with lending, while banks cannot deal with issuance of e-money.”
“E-money can help improve economy,” Makarov added.