How to unleash the potential of CBDCs without disrupting commercial banking
- The wholesale central bank digital currency model, combining commercial banking expertise with the guarantee of central bank involvement, is the way forward
- The challenge is to design infrastructure to maximise benefits such as better cross-border payment, without creating new vulnerabilities in the global financial system
CBDCs have enormous potential, but as with any disruptive new technology, they must be designed carefully to ensure the costs of change do not outweigh the benefits.
Among the biggest beneficiaries could be small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the engine of economic growth in much of the world. The burden of today’s long settlement times and high exchange costs often fall disproportionately on smaller enterprises, squeezing their cash flow and blunting competitiveness. If well designed, CBDC payment approaches could help ease some of these pressures.
There are still many unanswered questions. Should CBDCs be limited to settlements between banks and big businesses, or available to everyone? How will CBDCs coexist with the private money in the commercial banking system, so that banks can continue to play their vital role of lending to the economy and supporting growth?
Consensus does seem to be coalescing on the last question. Many models are looking at a hybrid system where the currency is issued by the central bank, but payment services and account management are outsourced to the commercial banking sector.
The biggest hurdle to reaping the efficiency savings that CBDCs promise cross-border payments is achieving interoperability: creating common standards and data protocols that allow CBDCs to fulfil their potential.
The mBridge project, of which HSBC is a part, transferred more than US$20 million across the network during a trial in August and September last year. The wholesale CBDC model, which combines the expertise of the commercial banking sector with the security of distributed-ledger technology and the guarantee of central bank involvement, is the way forward.
CBDC infrastructure like mBridge has enormous potential: it enables rapid transactions; may reduce settlement risk further; and the technology would also support advances like the tokenisation of assets and associated smart contracts.
Bit by bit, sovereign digital currencies will eat into dollar hegemony
There is much work to be done. The full impact of introducing CBDCs on financial systems and economies more broadly is still being explored, and, in particular, we need to ensure that banking systems do not suffer deposit losses at introduction. Still, CBDCs offer significant potential, and are therefore likely to be introduced more widely soon.
The challenge for both central and commercial banks is to design infrastructure so that it maximises benefits like faster and cheaper cross-border payments, preserves the best of the current system, and avoids creating new vulnerabilities in the global financial system.
Surendra Rosha is co-chief executive, Asia-Pacific, at HSBC