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Central Bank Perspectives
Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
Central bank digital currencies: System design
November 1, 2024
ISBN 978-92-9259-806-8
The report first provides some perspectives on overall system design and then focuses on four key issues essential for designing a well-functioning retail CBDC system: privacy, cyber security (including quantum computing), offline functionality and point of sale considerations.
National Bank of Rwanda
Research Paper on Rwanda Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
May 1, 2024
This research paper summarizes the key findings of the Feasibility Study on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in Rwanda in terms of economic, functional, legal, and financial perspectives. The research recommends to proceed iteratively and cautiously with multiple time-lined verification stages in terms of CBDC Proof of Concepts (PoC) and piloting.
Centre for Economic Policy Research
The digital euro after the investigation phase: Demystifying fears about bank disintermediation
February 19, 2024
The authors argue that earlier concerns of impact of a digital euro on bank funding should be reassessed now that they have been effectively addressed by design choices which need to be incorporated into the analysis.
The Federal Reserve System
Implications of a U.S. CBDC for International Payments and the Role of the Dollar
February 16, 2024
In this note, we explore these possibilities and argue that a CBDC in itself would likely only have a marginal effect on these international considerations, though its effect would depend on policy decisions by the United States and other jurisdictions as well as the impact of ongoing international efforts to improve payments.
Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
Central bank digital currencies: ongoing policy perspectives
May 25, 2023
A group of central banks, together with the Bank for International Settlements, are working together to explore central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for the public (“general purpose” or “retail” CBDC). Since publishing (i) a report in October 2020 setting out the common foundational principles and core features of a CBDC; and (ii) an executive summary and three detailed reports on system design and interoperability, user needs and adoption and financial stability implications in September 2021, the group has continued to share ideas and perspectives on similar themes, which are summarised in this note.
Riksbank
E-krona pilot phase 3
April 4, 2023
E-krona report
With regard to programmability, it is the possibility of conditional payments that is interesting in terms of the e-krona. It is therefore not the possibility of conditional money, as money that is programmed for special purposes loses a fundamental property of money: to be useable for payments in all contexts. The Riksbank’s intention with a possible e-krona is not to try to control or limit what it could be used for. This would contradict the basic function of money and, in addition, could be interpreted as an infringement of personal privacy…This could be described as the e-krona having a core platform for the settlement of payments that will perform basic tasks such as holding and transferring money in a secure, high-performance and reliable manner. This platform could then be called, via well-defined APIs, by an upper layer in which market actors can use more advanced logic to set the conditions to for example reserve e-kronor and initiate a transaction.
Bank for International Settlement
CBDCs: Keeping momentum in uncertain times
March 12, 2023
Innovation Summit 2023
'For us [central banks], the issuance of a digital currency that would be central bank money would not be programmable — would not be associated with any particular limitation, whether it’s in time, in type of use — that to me would be a voucher. It wouldn’t be a digital currency. Those who can associate the use of digital currency with programmability would be the intermediaries — would be the commercial banks. And that’s their business. They know how to do that, but if we are to say that a dollar is a dollar, whether it is cash or digital; or a euro is a euro, cash or digital — then for us [central bank] it cannot be programmable. It can be associated with conditionality, which is different, but not programmable,' said Madam Christine Lagarde.
International Monetary Fund
Crypto Assets and CBDCs in Latin America and the Caribbean
February 25, 2023
WP/23/37
After providing a general overview of the nature, pros, and cons of crypto assets and CBDCs, this paper focuses on documenting their recent experience in LAC. The region records a high interest in unbacked crypto assets and stablecoins and its authorities’ policy responses have varied substantially, ranging from the introduction of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador to their prohibition in many other countries worried about their impact on financial stability, currency/asset substitution, tax evasion, corruption, and money laundering. This paper also describes briefly the results of a survey on CBDCs’ introduction plans and crypto assets regulation. Finally, this paper presents some general lessons and policy recommendations for the region on the regulation of cypto assets, digital currencies and cross-border payments, and on the potential introduction of CBDCs.
US House Committee on Financial Services
The ECASH Act
March 27, 2022
The bill directs the Secretary of the Treasury to develop and pilot digital dollar technologies that replicate the privacy-respecting features of physical cash, in order to promote greater financial inclusion, maximize consumer protection and data privacy, and advance U.S. efforts to develop and regulate digital assets.
Federal Reserve Board
Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation
January 20, 2022
Research and Analysis
The paper summarizes the current state of the domestic payments system and discusses the different types of digital payment methods and assets that have emerged in recent years, including stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. It concludes by examining the potential benefits and risks of a CBDC, and identifies specific policy considerations.
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