Canada halts retail CBDC work

editorial

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The Bank of Canada has been working with the country’s commercial lenders for several years to study the creation of a DLT-based CBDC and the impact on the economy and financial system.

During the pandemic, the bank accelerated its actions in response to Covid-19 and its impact on cash use, but still warned that a digital madman was not a “foregone conclusion”. More recently, the usefulness of a CBDC in addressing unmet payment needs in a cashless environment was questioned in a bank discussion paper.

Now it says it is downsizing the work and “shifting its focus to broader payment systems research and policy development.”

The central bank adds: “The knowledge gained over the past few years will be invaluable when Canadians, through their elected representatives, decide at some point in the future that they want or need a digital Canadian dollar.”