Central bank digital currencies could 'promote financial inclusion', study finds

As regulators around the world study the risks and benefits of adopting a central bank digital currency, central banks take the view that a digital form of a country's fiat currency "could promote financial inclusion in the context of its payment properties," authors at the Bank for International Settlements and the World Bank explained in a report Tuesday. The report was based on a survey of nine central banks at different stages of exploring CBDCs, including those in Bahamas, Canada, China, Caribbean, Philippines, Ghana, Malaysia, Ukraine and Uruguay. The BIS and World Bank interviewed those central banks and found that existing barriers to financial inclusion, CBDC design features and regulatory hurdles were among the main talking points. The CBDC design features in particular target the promotion of innovation in the two-tiered payment system, as well as offering a low-cost public sector technological basis and facilitating enrolment and education, according to the study. While domestic retail payment services and cross-border payments