‘CBDC: Motives, Economic Implications and the Research Frontier’ - A Summary

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) wrote an article for the Annual Review of Economics that laid out work done on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to date ¹. The paper puts CBDCs in context of all payment methods and considers why and how CBDCs are being developed and the challenges central banks are grappling with to create a functional solution that delivers identified theoretical benefits while, at the same time, doing no harm. The paper reviews the research done so far and the extent to which this has shaped the work done, or not, and the gaps in research. This paper puts in one place an overview of journey so far and the direction of travel at the time of writing.