BIS Finds Central Banks Accelerating CBDC Development

In a report on the results of a "2022 Bank for International Settlements Survey on Central Bank Digital Currencies and Crypto" that covered 86 central banks, Bank for International Settlements ("BIS") highlighted that "93% of surveyed central banks are engaged in some form of CBDC work and more than half are running concrete experiments or working on pilots."

BIS found that the share of central banks likely to have a wholesale CBDC in the short term more than doubled in the past year. BIS projected that there could be 15 retail CBDCs (i.e. CBDCs intended for everyday transactions by households and businesses) and nine wholesale CBDCs (i.e., CBDCs used for transactions between financial institutions) could be circulating for public use by 2030.

Further, BIS stated that more than 70 percent of jurisdictions have a fast payment system and 18 percent plan to launch one, which, they say, will complement retail CBDCs domestic payment methods. BIS added that this underscores the importance of retail CBDCs' interoperability with existing payment systems. BIS reported that the emergence of crypto assets and stablecoins has accelerated many central banks’ work on CBDCs.