Are Central Bankers Really In El Salvador To Talk About Bitcoin?
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele tweeted on Sunday that the nation will be hosting over 40 countries’ central banks and financial authorities this week to discuss topics including Bitcoin (BTC).
Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country.
Many interpreted the tweet to mean that El Salvador, which last year made bitcoin legal tender, is holding a bitcoin-focused conference for central bankers. However, this is not exactly the case.
In a tweet Bukele listed all of the central banks that would be participating in the event, but he did not reveal name of the event. Two financial meetings are taking place in San Salvador between May 16 and May 19:
The 25th Digital Financial Services Working Group (DFSWG)
18th SME Finance Working Group (SMEFWG)
Both of them are part of the Alliance For Financial Inclusion (AFI), a Malaysia-based organization that describes itself as “a policy leadership alliance owned and led by member central banks and financial regulatory institutions with the common objective of advancing financial inclusion at the country, regional and international levels.” El Salvador’s Central Reserve Bank is jointly hosting these two working group meetings with AFI.
It might have been exaggerated that the meetings would focus mainly on Bitcoin. AFI event page does not even mention crypto or Bitcoin by name in the working group descriptions.
Paraguay set the record straight
Paraguay’s central bank (BCP) issued a statement saying that while it is participating in the SME Finance Working Group meeting, that event is not focused on cryptocurrency.
“The focus of the meeting is not related to cryptocurrencies or the like,” the BCP statement reads. The central bank explained that it was releasing the clarification following publications stating it would participate in an “international event about cryptocurrencies.”
The BCP also reminded in the statement that cryptocurrency is not legal tender in Paraguay, and referred to its 2019 remarks on the topic.
It added:
“Likewise, the BCP does not plan to discuss cryptocurrencies in the said environment or meeting, a matter on which an institutional position has been established at the time.”
— Roman Martínez🇸🇻⚡️ (chimbera) (@romanmartinezc) May 16, 2022
Cryptocurrency was not ignored during the working group meetings as central bank heads discuss financial inclusion. What financial leader sitting in El Salvador would not be curious to know how the country’s bitcoin implementation is going. But to say that the meeting is “a conference that may best be described as the Davos for Bitcoin,” as one media outlet wrote, is a bit far fetched. It is primarily focused on financial inclusion, and one of several meetings that AFI holds each year.
