The vast majority of central banks in the world are considering launching a central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to analysts at professional services and accounting firm, PwC.
In the firm’s annual index of CBDCs and stablecoins, which was released on Tuesday, the analysts stated: “CBDCs will facilitate more effective, lower cost and 24/7/365 cross-border payments for the financial services industry.
“We expect that CBDCs will greatly benefit cross-border transactions and economies of all relevant jurisdictions.”
Overall, retail CBDC projects, which are digital currencies designed for public use, have reached greater maturity levels than wholesale projects, which are digital currencies used by financial institutions that have accounts with central banks,” the report noted.
There has been an increase in wholesale pilots in recent years though, analysts said.
China became the first major economy to pilot a retail CBDC in 2020 with the digital yuan. The pilot is running in 12 cities as of March 2022.
The Sand Dollar, issued by the Central Bank of the Bahamas as legal tender in October 2020, was the first retail project of its kind. Nigeria’s central bank launched the first CBDC in Africa, the eNaira, shortly afterwards.
On the wholesale side, PwC ranked the combined effort from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand to launch mBridge as the top product.
The central banks are working to develop a proof-of-concept prototype to enable real-time, cross-border foreign exchange payments on distributed ledger technology.
Other top projects include efforts by Canada, Singapore, France and South Africa.
“Wholesale CBDCs have the potential to streamline security token post-trade operations through atomic delivery-versus-payment and increase the market efficiency for several asset classes,” said PwC France and Maghreb Financial Services Risk and Blockchain Partner, Benoit Sureau.
