With Donald Trump banning work on a digital dollar, a central bank survey suggests that while 75% still plan to issue a CDC, nearly a third have pushed back their issuance timeline.
Following years of Federal Reserve research and work, Trump has quickly moved to stymie any progress towards a digital dollar, issuing an executive order prohibiting government agencies from undertaking any action to establish, issue, or promote CBDCs and to immediately end any related ongoing work.
Against this backdrop, tech vendor Giesecke+Devrient and thinktank Omfif have published a survey of 34 central banks from around the world. The majority - 75% - still plan to issue a CBDC, with over half allocating more internal resources. The proportion of respondents expecting to issue a CBDC in the next three to five years has grown to 34% from 26% in 2023.
Yet, there is some cooling on the issue, with 15% of respondents saying they are now less inclined to issue a CBDC, up from zero per cent in 2022. Meanwhile, 31% have delayed their issuance timeline, citing legislation and a desire to explore a wider range of solutions.
One unnamed survey respondent says they will be reducing their efforts on CBDC research to ‘focus on other payment issues’, while another explains that ‘we concluded that we need to make more progress in terms of regulations and market developments for payments first’.
There has been significant progress in addressing technical requirements for CBDC issuance, with offline payments no longer an insurmountable obstacle and optimising user experience climbing up the agenda.
Financial inclusion and preserving central bank monetary sovereignty are the leading motivations for emerging market and developed market central banks, respectively.
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