105 Countries Exploring CBDCs

105 Countries are Exploring CBDCs and 11 Have Already Launched Them

Rhoda Wilson

At an International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) seminar last month, IMF’s Deputy Managing Director and former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, Bo Li, spoke about the “programmability” of central bank digital currencies (“CBDCs”):

“CBDC can improve financial inclusion [ ] through what we call programmability. That is CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program, to create smart contract, to allow targeted policy functions. For example, welfare payment, for example, consumption coupon, for example, food stamp.  By programming CBDC, those money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own and what kind of use this money can be utilised, for example, for food.”

Status of CBDCs Worldwide

In May 2020, 35 countries were considering a CBDC according to the Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker.

In November 2021, Visual Capitalist summarised the status of CBDCs using data from the Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker.  Although widespread adoption of CBDCs is still far away, Visual Capitalist wrote, research and experiments are making notable strides forward:

• 81 countries representing 90% of global GDP are exploring CBDCs.
• The share of central banks actively engaging in CBDC work grew to 86% in the last 4 years.
• 60% of central banks are conducting experiments on CBDCs (up from 42% in 2019) and 14% are moving forward to development and pilot arrangement.
• The Bahamas is one of five countries currently working with a CBDC – the Bahamian Sand Dollar.
• Sweden and Uruguay have shown interest in a digital currency. Sweden began testing an “e-krona” in 2020, and Uruguay announced tests to issue digital Uruguayan pesos as far back as 2017.
• The People’s Bank of China has been running CBDC tests since April 2020. In all, tens of thousands of citizens have participated, spending 2 billion yuan, and the country is poised to be the first to fully launch a CBDC.

The UK central bank was less optimistic about rolling out a CBDC in the near future, Visual Capitalist noted last year. “The proposed digital currency – dubbed “Britcoin” – is unlikely to arrive until at least 2025.”

In August 2022, Visual Capitalist updated the status of CBDC worldwide, again using data from the Atlantic Council.  It was then as it is now, 105 out of 109 countries being tracked are exploring CBDCs. These 105 countries represent over 95% of global GDP.

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