"The Bank of Canada has articulated two scenarios under which the issuance of CBDC might be desirable.
- The first is a situation where cash is not widely used or accepted for a wide range of transactions, especially if this situation leads to adverse consequences for disadvantaged groups. In Canada, cash remains almost universally accepted but usage at the point of sale has been falling significantly (Huynh et al. 2019).
The cashless scenario is concerning largely for its distributional effects: while a vast majority of Canadians might willingly move away from cash altogether and towards exclusively electronic means of payments, some groups in society might not have the option to make that transition. The inability to transition to electronic means of payments could be, among other reasons, a function of a group’s socioeconomic factors such as income or geographical location.
- The second scenario envisions a situation where one or more alternative digital currencies – public or private – become widely adopted in Canada, threatening monetary sovereignty. In this scenario, the alternative digital currency would be denominated in a unit of account different to the Canadian dollar and would use settlement systems out of reach for Canadian regulators.
At the moment, however, the likelihood of widespread adoption of any alternative digital currencies seems small. The Bank has stated that the two scenarios described here are not meant to be an exhaustive list of all circumstances under which the Bank would consider issuing a digital currency.
Further, the scenarios are not strict triggers for issuance as wider risks and alternative policies would have to be considered even if these scenarios had materialized."
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"An interest-bearing CBDC could reduce the opportunity cost agents bear when holding means of payment. It would do this by allowing more flexible transfer schemes, where interest rates can be conditional on balances—for example, if agents held high money balances, they would be subject to a different interest rate than if they held low money balances. This could induce agents to maintain an efficient level of liquidity.1"
https://www.banqueducanada.ca/2020/02/note-analytique-personnel-2020-4/
A CBDC system for Canada
"While additional clarity and refinement of requirements are needed, the Bank of Canada would be able to develop a system that supports the ability to:
- store a claim in Canadian dollars against the Bank of Canada
- make payments person to person, at points of sale and online
- purchase and sell a CBDC with commercial bank money or cash
- Transaction rates of around 1,000 payments per second are achievable.
This is roughly equal to 25 million people making 2 payments per day spread evenly over 12 hours. The architecture could be designed for scaling. High security standards could also be achieved, albeit by possibly trading off other features, such as the openness of the system to third-party extensions."
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2020/02/staff-analytical-note-2020-6/
"There are many cryptographic techniques and operational arrangements for a fine-grained privacy design. These demand knowledge of the detailed requirements around privacy and disclosure.
The Bank could engineer a CBDC system with higher levels of privacy than commercial products can offer—but with trade-offs. Some combinations of requirements will not be feasible or may lead to high operational costs and excessive complexity and risk. Also, the user’s overall privacy will depend on factors such as user behaviour and the privacy policies of other entities in the CBDC ecosystem."
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2020/06/staff-analytical-note-2020-9/
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"It seems to me, however, that private-sector innovations might reduce the markup charged by banks more effectively than a CBDC would.11 If commercial banks are earning rents from their market power, then there is a profit opportunity for nonbanks to enter the payment business and provide the general public with cheaper payment services."
http://www.doctorat.ase.ro/Media/Default/Cursuri/2021/%20PPT%20Presentations%20Prof.%20Cristina%20Marine/Central%20Bank%20Digital%20Currency.pdf#page=98