Central bank digital currencies: a new tool in the financial inclusion toolkit?

The BIS recently published a paper summarising what had been learned from a series of interviews with nine central banks exploring how these institutions were thinking about the potential of a CBDC to support the pursuit of “financial inclusion” objectives explicit or implicit in their mandates.

A lot of what the paper documents and discusses will be pretty familiar to anyone who has been following the BIS and individual central banks on this topic but I think the following observations offered by the paper about the best way to pursue financial inclusion is worth noting

It needs to be noted that many of these features [i.e. the benefits of a CBDC] can, in isolation, be offered by other payment innovations, and many gaps could be addressed through regulation and sound oversight arrangements. Combining different payment innovations – such as open application programming interfaces (APIs), fast payment services, contactless chips and QR codes – could achieve many of the same goals. This is particularly true when accompanied by robust regulatory and oversight arrangements that public authorities can use to catalyse private sector players, enforce sound governance arrangements and foster required coordination and collaboration. Adoption of relevant technologies for supervisory and regulatory compliance could also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of regulators and supervisors. What is truly different about CBDC is that it is a direct claim on the central bank. It is an open question for central banks whether CBDCs or other policy interventions are the best fit for their jurisdiction. Yet if a CBDC is to be issued (for financial inclusion or other motives), interviews with central banks clearly point to the importance of inclusive design elements to successfully promote inclusive outcomes. We discuss these elements in the next subsection.

Page 13, paragraph 16

There is a narrative that sees CBDC adoption as inevitable based in part on the fact that so many central banks are looking at the question. In contrast, the BIS paper clearly states that a CBDC is not a “panacea” and that many of the outcomes a CBDC might deliver could equally be delivered by other payment innovations such as “open application programming interfaces (APIs) , fast payment services, contactless chips and QR codes”

It is also worth noting that, of the nine central banks interviewed, eight were emerging market and developing economies and only one (Bank of Canada) an advanced economy. The results should therefore be interpreted with that bias in mind.

Summing up, my take is that

• the business case for a retail CBDC seems to have the most weight in the emerging market and developing economies with relatively poorly developed financial infrastructure
• the business case for a retail CBDC in an advanced economy is less obvious
• other initiatives such as central bank sponsorship of fast payment systems might be a better use of central bank resources
• not explicitly referenced in the paper, but the recent experience with the roll out of fast payment systems in Brazil and India offer interesting case studies
• the central bank focus on CBDCs seems to continue to be heavily weighted toward account based systems
• token based CBDCs are mentioned in passing but do not seem to be high on the list of priorities

Let me know what I am missing

Tony – From the Outside