Securing Your Reputation When Issuing a CBDC

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has published its second guide to creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) ¹. This edition focuses on a security and resilience framework to guide central banks through the critical task of creating a safe CBDC. The challenge, of course, is a CBDC may require a central bank to develop and update a mass market product and serve retail consumers, tasks outside its normal world. Given the complexity of CBDCs and the critical role of payments, the reputational risk is significant.

The paper explains the size of the challenge from the technology touch points through who the bad actors may be to what can go wrong ending up with a framework to create a safe solution. Roles and responsibilities are assigned, and the stakeholders identified. While the paper predominantly deals with the security risks, delivering a resilient solution is actually just as important.