PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech National Bank board member Jan Kubicek is “sceptical” in regards to the inclusion of bitcoin among the many bank’s hefty reserves, wary of legal uncertainties and concerns around volatility of the digital currency.

CNB Governor Ales Michl put bitcoin up for consideration earlier this 12 months, and the bank has begun an evaluation looking into broadening the asset classes it holds in its reserves portfolio.

“We’ll assess different classes of assets. Bitcoin is just one among them,” Kubicek said in an interview on Tuesday. “My position is reasonably sceptical about bitcoin.”

He said bitcoin’s legal status was one concern, and that direct ownership would mean developing many recent processes in accounting or auditing, for instance.

Volatility was one other worry and assessing market price developments was difficult, he said.

“We cannot make sure that bitcoin’s volatility in the approaching years will mirror the patterns observed over the past decade because I think that, if more institutional investors accept bitcoin as an investment asset, it is going to begin to behave in a different way from what now we have seen to this point.”

The bank’s study on recent asset classes could come by October, Kubicek said.

Holdings of international corporate bonds could possibly be explored, he said, in addition to the potential of investing in additional targeted equity indices, resembling for technology, and property investment funds.

CNB Vice Governor Eva Zamrazilova has said bitcoin isn’t an acceptable asset for reserves, while European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde has also said Europe’s central banks should not the place for it.

The Czech central bank’s reserves – at 142.8 billion euros ($155.75 billion) – are around 45% of gross domestic product, and it has diversified holdings lately, steadily purchasing gold, and shifting a bigger portion of the portfolio into equities.

($1 = 0.9168 euros)

(Reporting by Jason Hovet; Editing by Rachna Uppal)