By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – Evidence emerging from the first central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) around the world suggests there is no one-size-fits-all model, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.
Nearly 100 countries are now looking at CBDCs the IMF estimates and it published a study on Wednesday looking at six countries including China, Sweden and the Bahamas where digital money is already up and running or at an advanced testing stage.
In a speech on the report, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the main takeaway from these early experiences was that there were lessons to learn.
If CBDCs were designed “prudently” they could potentially offer more resilience, make it easier for people to have access to bank-type services and lower the cost of moving around money.
And they should be safer too, compared to “unbacked cryptoassets that are inherently volatile” as well as better-managed and regulated “stablecoins” which are generally linked to a fiat currency.
“First, no one size fits all,” Georgieva said.
Second, financial stability and privacy considerations are paramount to the design of CBDCs, while there also needed to be balance between developments on the design front and on the policy front.
“These are still early days for CBDCs and we don’t quite know how far and how fast they will go,” Georgieva added.
(Reporting by Marc Jones, Editing by Louise Heavens)
