Delivering Offline Capability

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has published ‘A Handbook for Offline Payments with Central Bank Digital Currencies’ (CBDCs).

This is a comprehensive record of key decisions and options open to central banks if they want to set up their CBDC to allow the transfer of value between devices without connection to a ledger system. According to a BIS central bank survey, 49% of central banks saw this as vital for their CBDC and 49% as advantageous.

Offline options

There are three modes of offline payments and the decision which to use depends on the circumstances and goals of the central bank.

Fully offline. Final settlement occurs offline, and each party can spend the value transferred to them immediately and without time limit.