Government-issued electronic currency seems to be an idea whose time has come. “More than half of the world’s central banks are now developing digital
Government-issued electronic currency seems to be an idea whose time has come.
“More than half of the world’s central banks are now developing digital currencies or running concrete experiments on them,” reported the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, in early May — something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
The BIS also found that nine out of ten central banks were exploring central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, in some form or other, according to its survey of 81 central banks conducted last autumn but just published.
Many were taken aback by the progress. “It is truly remarkable that some 90% of central banks are doing work on CBDCs,” Ross Buckley, KPMG-KWM professor of disruptive innovation at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, told Cointelegraph. “The year-on-year growth in this field is extraordinary.”
“What I found most surprising was the speed at which advanced economies were moving toward retail CBDCs,” Franklin Noll, president at Noll Historical Consulting, LLC, told Cointelegraph. “As recently as the middle of last year, central banks in advanced economies were taking a rather relaxed view of CBDCs, not seeing them as particularly necessary or worthy of much attention.”
Momentum accelerated last year, the report observed. After the Bahamas launched the world’s first live retail CBDC — the Sand Dollar — in 2020, Nigeria followed in 2021 with its own electronic money, the eNaira. Meanwhile, the Eastern Caribbean and China released pilot versions of their digital currencies, DCash and e-CNY, respectively. “And there is likely more to come: a record share of central banks in the survey — 90% — is engaged in some form of CBDC work,” said the BIS.
The Bahamas struggles, Sweden deliberates, Chile delays
Implementing a successful CBDC may be easier said than done, however. The Bahamas’ new digital money has struggled to gain traction, accounting for less than 0.1% of currency in circulation in that island nation, the International Monetary Fund said in March, and “there are limited avenues to use the Sand Dollar.” More education of the populace is needed, said the IMF, a challenge that other government-issued electronic currencies will probably face as well.
Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, has been researching, discussing and experimenting with digital currencies longer than most. Its e-krona project began in 2017, and a pilot program, launched in 2020, is now in its second phase. Carl-Andreas Claussen, a senior advisor in the Riksbank’s payments department, told Cointelegraph that there are lots of reasons why central banks might want to implement a CBDC, but “at the Riksbank, it is first of all the decline in Sweden’s use of cash.”
Sweden is racing toward becoming the Western world’s first cashless society. From 2010 to 2020, the proportion of Swedes using cash fell from 39% to 9%, according to the Riksbank. But, this also raises questions. As Claussen told Cointelegraph:
“If physical cash disappears, the public will not have access to central bank money anymore. That will be a serious change from how it has been over the last 400 years in Sweden. With an e-krona, the Riksbank will offer central bank money that the public can use.”
Still, nothing has been decided in Sweden. “It is not clear that we will need it,” Claussen said. “So first, we have to sort out if we need it at all and if it is worthwhile to do it. We are not there yet.”
Claussen has little doubt, however, that if a modern government decides to issue a digital currency it can succeed. It will need to be sure that it really needs a CBDC, however. “Neither the Riksbank nor the larger central banks around the world have decided whether or not to issue a CBDC,” he declared. Not even China? “I have not heard that they have made a final decision to issue,” he told Cointelegraph.
Elsewhere, Chile announced last week that it was delaying the rollout of its CBDC, explaining that a government-issued digital peso required more study. Chile is looking to develop a national payment system that is “inclusive, resilient, and protects people’s information,” according to a report. But, its central bank said that it still doesn’t have enough information to make a final decision on it.
According to CBDC Tracker, only the Bahamas and Nigeria have progressed to full CBDC “launch” in the real world, while 2022 thus far has seen more canceled projects like Singapore’s Project Orchid than full roll-outs. On the other hand, only five “pilot” programs were underway in January 2020, compared with 15 in May 2022, which suggests more launches could be imminent.
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What is driving the trend?
The BIS sees different motivating factors behind this “growing…
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