Central bank digital currencies: What they mean for financial inclusion and private sector banks
Three pilots, one fully launched digital currency in Africa
The world’s central banks understand that the future of money is digital. As payments shift online, the use of cash declines and the fortunes of crypto assets rise and fall, central bankers realise that their ability to command the use of money in their economies could weaken and that the financial exclusion of un- and underbanked citizens could be cemented. To try and forestall such developments, central banks in all the world’s major economies and most of its lesser ones are exploring the creation of digital currencies, and a handful of emerging economies have already launched their own.
The widespread introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), especially in the world’s major economies, is not imminent. But the g...