The Swiss non-governmental organization World Economic Forum (WEF) has introduced the first of its kind guide for central banks developing their own digital coins. This was reported on the WEF website.
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The CBDC Policy Maker Toolkit framework provides guidelines for central banks in various countries, designed primarily to help these organizations decide whether they need a digital currency.
For those who are already developing such a means of payment, management will help “quickly make progress,” representatives of the WEF are sure.
Any implementation of CBDC will have a “significant impact domestically and internationally,” emphasized WEF's distributed registry technology expert Sheila Warren.
The 28-page document was developed in collaboration with 40 central banks, scientific and financial institutions. It provides information on retail, wholesale, cross-border, and hybrid CBDCs.
The document also describes a step-by-step process for assessing potential benefits and risks. For example, WEF representatives are convinced that in some cases CBDCs can reduce cross-border payment costs. However, for countries with an efficient payment infrastructure, the digital coin of the CB does not represent any value.
In the retail sector, CBDCs can reduce costs and improve fund management. However, this requires significant investment in cybersecurity systems, the authors of the document note.
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The heads of the central banks of Bahrain and Thailand noted that they had already taken the document developed by the WEF into service, and expressed the hope that it'd form the basis of decisions to launch CBDC.
Recall that in December, the Swiss authorities spoke out in favor of issuing a wholesale CBDC.