The Bank of Canada has said it is ending its work on the central bank’s retail digital currency. As informs Finextra has been exploring the possibility of launching a CBDC in Canada for several years.
Bank of Canada experts worked with the country’s commercial lenders to create a CBDC based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) and study the implications for the financial system. The feasibility of CBDCs in addressing unmet payment needs in a cashless environment was recently questioned in a Bank discussion paper.
Currently, it is about curtailing the work and shifting the focus to the research of the payment system. Bank representatives emphasized that this is not a final decision: “The body of knowledge accumulated over the past years will be invaluable if, at some point in the future, Canadians, through their elected representatives, decide that they want or need a digital Canadian dollar.”
Earlier in September, it became known that 98% of central banks in the world are working over own CBDCs. And nearly half have made significant progress in their research, with pioneers such as China, the Bahamas and Nigeria seeing increased use.
