Report
April 2024
Beginning around 2014, central banks around the world began exploring the idea of creating and issuing a digital form of money in response to the increasingly digital nature of their economies.
Like physical currency, a general-purpose “central bank digital currency” (CBDC) would be a liability of the central bank that is intended to be widely available to the public. While there are potential benefits to CBDCs, including easing money transfers and promoting financial inclusion, CBDCs may also present trade-offs and implications for consumers, market participants, the payment system, and the execution of monetary policy. These are some of the characteristics of a CBDC that central banks around the world are carefully considering within the context of their specific jurisdictions.
In this study, we found that a slight majority of consumers were generally receptive to the idea of a U.S. CBDC, but widespread consumer adoption will require that the product does not require fees to access or use, be accepted widely in the marketplace, be uncomplicated to adopt, and provides high levels of security and privacy for consumers. At the same time, not all consumers were confident they could render an opinion about a CBDC.
