The World Bank has poured cold water on El Salvador’s adoption of bitcoin as legal tender, saying it cannot support the move due to “environmental and transparency” concerns.
But the developmental body may soon be forced to accept bitcoin payments from countries that have embraced the cryptocurrency.
Its founding document, the 1944 Articles of Agreement, outlines the procedures and principles by which the World Bank pledges to engage with sovereign governments. A central theme in the document is its commitment to accept payments from member states in local currencies.
Section 12 of Article V defines acceptable “forms of holdings of currency” as follows:
- The Bank shall accept from any member, in place of any part of the member’s currency, paid in to the Bank under Article II, Section 7 (i), or to meet amortization payments on loans made with such currency, and not needed by the Bank in its operations, notes or similar obligations issued by the Government of the member or the depository designated by such member, which shall be non-negotiable, non-interest-bearing and payable at their par value on demand by credit to the account of the Bank in the designated depository.
So, as well as allowing payments in “the member’s currency”, the charter allows central banks to pay with “notes or similar obligations” backed by their reserves.
These are effectively IOUs from governments. They can be backed by dollars. They can be backed by precious metals (the US Federal Reserve guaranteed its notes with gold until 1934, and with silver until the 1960s). Or they can be backed by bitcoin; perhaps, in El Salvador’s case, the $150m bitcoin fund being established by Banco de Desarrollo de El Salvador, the national development bank.
Things gets more awkward. Section 9 of Article II states that holdings paid into the bank by members should be continually re-valued (presumably against a “real” benchmark like USD). If the local currency has appreciated, it says, the World Bank should do the decent thing and hands the gains back:
- Whenever the par value of a member’s currency is increased, the Bank shall return to such member within a reasonable time an amount of that member’s currency equal to the increase in the value of the amount of such currency
Conversely, if the local currency has depreciated, the member gets margin called and has to “pay to the Bank within a reasonable time an additional amount of its own currency sufficient to maintain the value”. Or, put another way: when bitcoin starts tanking, the World Bank starts stacking. Nice.
All of this depends, of course, on whether or not the body will respect El Salvador’s sovereign right to choose its own currency.
That’s not a foregone conclusion. Reuters asked them about that yesterday and got a decidedly arsey response. “We are committed to helping El Salvador in numerous ways, including for currency transparency and regulatory processes,” a spokesperson waffled. “While the government did approach us for assistance on bitcoin, this is not something the World Bank can support given the environmental and transparency shortcomings.”
The World Bank, by the way, has invested more than $12bn in fossil fuel projects over the past six years, representing at least 6% of its total investment portfolio. It also accepts gold payments from members, despite gold mines emitting on average 0.8 tonnes of CO2 for every ounce of gold produced.
Still, they’re worried about bitcoin’s carbon footprint. So they’ll be happy to know that, by some estimates, 76% of bitcoin miners are already using renewable energy.
Oh yes, and every transaction ever made on the bitcoin network is recorded on an immutable digital ledger that is fully visible to all market participants. That makes it, by far, the most transparent monetary network that has ever existed. No funny business allowed.
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60 largest banks in the world have invested $3.8 trillion in fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement
Major banks around the world are still financing fossil fuel companies to the tune of trillions of dollars.
A new report, published Wednesday from a collection of climate organizations and titled Banking on Climate Chaos 2021, finds 60 of the world’s largest commercial and investment banks have collectively put $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels from 2016 to 2020, the five after The Paris Agreement was signed.
“This report serves as a reality check for banks that think that vague ‘net-zero’ goals are enough to stop the climate crisis,” says Lorne Stockman, a Senior Research Analyst at Oil Change International, one of the organizations authoring the report, in a statement released with the report. “Our future goes where the money flows, and in 2020 these banks have ploughed billions into locking us into further climate chaos.”
On an annual basis, total fossil fuel financing dropped 9% in 2020. But the report attributes that to Covid-19-related restrictions on demand.
The report also found that “fossil fuel financing … from the world’s 60 largest commercial and investment banks was higher in 2020 than it was in 2016,” the first full year the Paris climate greement was in effect. It is worth noting that President Donald Trump withdrew from the international agreement in 2017. President Joe Biden rejoined The Paris Agreement on his first day in office.
The three banks that did the most fossil fuel financing in 2020, according to the report, were
- JPMorgan Chase at $51.3 billion;
- Citi at $48.4 billion; and
- Bank of America with $42.1 billion.
A representative of JPMorgan Chase told CNBC Make It that the bank could not comment on a third party report. But the bank did direct CNBC Make It to its initiatives addressing climate change, including “adopting a financing commitment that is aligned to the goals of the Paris Agreement” and facilitating $200 billion in clean, sustainable financing by 2025.
Citi directed CNBC Make It to a blog post published Tuesday from Val Smith, the bank’s Chief Sustainability Officer. In the post, Citi said it will work with existing fossil fuel banking clients to transition first to a public reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and then to a gradual phase out of financing offered to companies that don’t comply in adhering to carbon reduction standards.
“As the world’s most global bank, we acknowledge that we are connected with many carbon-intensive sectors that have driven global economic development for decades,” Smith wrote. “Our work to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 therefore makes it imperative that we work with our clients, including our fossil fuel clients, to help them and the energy systems that we all rely on to transition to a net-zero economy.”
Bank of America did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It’s request for comment.
The Banking on Climate Chaos 2021 report comes as indicators show global economies are not currently on track to meet the emissions reductions established as part of The Paris Agreement in 2015.
The 2020 report is the 12th annual, though the scope of the report has expanded in that time. The report was a collaboration by seven non-profits: Rainforest Action Network, Bank Track, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, and Sierra Club.
The report authors aggregate bank lending and underwriting data using Bloomberg’s league credit methodology, meaning credit is divided between banks playing a leading role in a given transaction, and uses data from Bloomberg Finance L.P. and the Global Coal Exit List.
Also, banks are given the opportunity to weigh in on the findings. “Draft report findings are shared with banks in advance, and they are given an opportunity to comment on financing and policy assessments,” the report says.