Central bank body BIS appoints new head of digital currency hub

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank for International Settlements, the umbrella body for central banks, on Tuesday named a new head of its Innovation Hub that oversees its influential work on digital currencies, artificial intelligence and other up-and-coming technologies.

Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, assistant director for payments, currencies and infrastructure at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will join the Switzerland-based BIS at the start of March, BIS said in a statement.

Often dubbed the central bankers' central bank, the BIS has been looking to fill the role since former Swedish central banker Cecilia Skingsley left in May, two years before her term was due to end.

The BIS innovation unit was set up in 2019 to identify and develop new technologies and rapidly expanded to seven financial centres from London to Hong Kong, though reports this year said it was set to be pared back.

Central bank digital currencies in particular have become a geopolitical hot topic and late last year the BIS suddenly quit a flagship project it had been collaborating on with China and a number of other Asian central banks.

It has also issued increasingly stark warnings about stablecoins - a type of cryptocurrency usually pegged 1:1 to the dollar - and urged countries to move rapidly towards the tokenisation of their currencies. 

Mancini-Griffoli will lead its efforts to foster international collaboration among central banks on innovative financial technology, BIS said.

(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Richard Chang)