I doubt any banks are seriously interested in crypto as a currency, but integrating blockchain technology into their existing ecosystems to speed up settlement of fiat transactions. To the extent they are interested in their own crypto, I reckon it's as a surrogate of the dollar (therefore a stablecoin) which they can completely control, to make transfers instantaneous from all market participants in that ecosystem.
Right. Like i said in my initial comment, they are looking to have some sort of inter-institutional standards of using such stablecoins. What they are saying is that they will use the 'idea of bitcoin' and use it as their own in terms of its benefits to infrastructure as well as simplifying a lot of financial transactions and financial products.
In that regard, it is absolutely a competitor to Bitcoin --snip--
We all saw what happened when Bitcoin tried to solve the block size problem. It took months to make any headway in the debate and in the end literally tore the community apart and the BCH splinter group was the result. Bitcoin's only advantage at this point was being first, but it is not agile and that's its greatest weakness.
I don't think that it will be easy for the banks to come to some form of settlement too. They will simply end up being another set of "stablecoin" with a consortium of central banks. Even then, there is zero chance that everyone will settle for the same thing. The advantage with bitcoin is that everyone agrees on it. Everyone knows that the longest chain, highest network effect, highest hash-rate and best development is with bitcoin. These are all features not easy to replicate.