PWC: More than 80 % of the central banks consider the introduction of a CBDC

PWC: More than 80 % of the central banks consider the introduction of a CBDC

According to the analysts of the auditing company PWC, the vast majority of central banks consider the introduction of a digital central bank currency (CBDC).

"CBDCs will enable more effective, cheaper payments around the clock to be more effective for the financial services industry", analysts from PWC said in the annual report of the company Index from CBDCS and StableCoins, which was published on Monday. "We assume that CBDC's cross -border transactions and economies of all relevant jurisdiction will benefit considerably."

Overall, CBDC retail projects, which are digital currencies that are intended for public use, have a higher level of maturity than wholesale projects that are digital currencies used by financial institutions that have accounts at central banks. According to analysts, however, there has been an increase in pilot projects in wholesale in recent years.

China was the first major economy to test a CBDC for retail with digital Yuan in 2020. The pilot project will run in 12 cities from March 2022.

The Sand Dollar, which was issued in October 2020 by the Central Bank of the Bahamas as a legal means of payment, was the first retail project of its kind. The Nigerian Central Bank started the first CBDC in Africa, the Enaira shortly afterwards.

On the wholesale side, PWC classified the joint effort of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand to introduce MBRidge as a top product. The central banks are working on the development of a proof-of-concept prototype to enable cross-border currency payments in real time on the distributed Ledger technology.

Other top projects are efforts by Canada, Singapore, France and South Africa.

"wholesale CBDCs have the potential to rationalize security token after-trade operations through atomic delivery and increase market efficiency for several investment classes," said Benoit Sureau, risk and blockchain partner of PWC France and Maghreb Financial Services.

PwC analysts took up a stablecoin overview in the annual CBDC index report and found that privately output tokens will develop and exist in addition to CBDCs.

StableCoins achieved a market capitalization of around $ 190 billion in early 2022 and will continue to grow, since the tokens offer many of the same advantages as a CBDC without monitoring that is associated with a currency issued by the government, the report says.

The transparency in terms of currency reserves, especially for stable coins that are covered with Fiat currency, will be an important concern in the future, since the asset class continues to grow and regulation increases, added analysts.

"The role of the stablecoin on the cryptoma markets has and will continue to develop with increasing acceptance of crypto and force a more important role of the stable coins in the entire financial ecosystem," said Matt Blumenfeld, Director and Digital Asset Specialist at PWC. "The regulation will only strengthen the meaning and the role that stable coins will play."

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The contribution "PwC: More than 80 % of the central banks consider the introduction of a CBDC" not financial advice.