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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Consider the following five questions: What’s the end game in adoption compared with traditional money? Business cases and scenarios should be based on assessments of the current and future payment landscape and realistic adoption goals. Which constituencies does the CBDC aim to address? Design choices should be based on the user segment: private citizens, commercial banks, or corporations. Decisions should be informed by expertise outside the traditional central-bank organizations. What role will the central bank play? Whether or not the central bank envisions itself as deeply involved, existing relationships with commercial banks and corporations should be used to achieve adoption goals. What resources and capabilities will be required? Central banks are likely to need new decision-making processes, new change management practices, and talent experienced in forging partnerships. What changes beyond payments will central banks need to enforce? Hurdles in regulation, commerce enablement, and fiscal rights will need to be overcome to achieve central banks’ adoption goals. But as we’ve seen, central banks aren’t the only organizations invested in the game. Here’s how other stakeholders can prepare for the arrival of CBDCs: Providers of financial-service infrastructure should optimize their design choices for interoperability with digital currencies. Retail banks, merchants, and payment service providers should consider the level of infrastructure investment that might be needed to implement CBDCs successfully as they address other requirements for modernizing payments. Chief risk officers and CFOs should monitor the impact of digital currencies on bank liquidity and capital requirements in light of potential policy changes. Investors in popular and speculative cryptocurrencies should anticipate how CBDCs will affect their assets. The emergence of central-bank solutions could hinder the growth of crypto ecosystems. Commercial banks should learn to conduct effective KYC and anti-money-laundering monitoring of digital currencies. In models that involve commercial banks issuing CBDCs to customers (in return for deposit-based revenue opportunities), they will also be expected to carry the cost burden for KYC compliance.While much is still unknown about the future of CBDCs, a fuller picture of their benefits and disadvantages will emerge with time. One thing is clear: CBDCs have the potential to significantly affect the world.For a more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s insights on financial services. Learn more about McKinsey’s Financial Services Practice—and check out finance-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.Pop quizArticles referenced Olivier Denecker, Arnaud d’Estienne, Pierre-Matthieu Gompertz, and Elia Sasia, “Central bank digital currencies: An active role for commercial banks,” McKinsey, October 13, 2022 Ian De Bode, Matt Higginson, and Marc Niederkorn, “CBDC and stablecoins: Early coexistence on an uncertain road,” McKinsey, October 11, 2021 Matt Higginson, Atakan Hilal, and Erman Yugac, “Blockchain and retail banking: Making the connection,” McKinsey, June 7, 2019 Sonia Barquin, Vinayak HV, and Duhita Shrikhande, “Reaching Asia’s digital banking customers,” McKinsey, April 16, 2018 Chris Berry, Susan Lund, James Manyika, Marc Singer, and Olivia White, “How digital finance could boost growth in emerging economies,” McKinsey Global Institute, September 21, 2016
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