Central bank digitalcurrencies in Africa

Enrique Alberola and Ilaria Mattei

No 128 in BIS Papers from Bank for International Settlements

Abstract: This paper, based on a survey to central banks, analyses the development, motivations and concerns of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in Africa relative to other emerging and developing regions. The interest of African central banks in CBDCs has shot up in recent times. While all of those surveyed are analysing CBDCs, only few have projects at advanced stages (pilot or live). Some countries, in particular in East and West Africa, stand out as promoting fast payment systems through mobile money, but half of the surveyed central banks think that CBDCs can provide a superior solution. Like their peers, a key motivation for African central banks is achieving greater payment system efficiency. In addition, a higher proportion than in other regions see potential benefits for monetary policy, an important consideration for a region where the transmission mechanism is weak. Central banks in Africa also place more emphasis on financial inclusion. These factors could foster CBDC issuance and favour a option. At the same time, they are more worried than other regions about cyber security risks and cross-border spillovers and are also concerned about high operational burdens. These factors and others, such as the high degree of informality that may hinder adoption, favour a cautious approach. All in all, differences in motivations, concerns and other country-specific factors determine how central banks are approaching CBDCs.

Date: 2022 Written 2022-11
ISBN: 978-92-9259-577-7
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap128.pdf Full PDF document (application/pdf)
http://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap128.htm (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bis:bisbps:128

Access Statistics for this book

More books in BIS Papers from Bank for International Settlements Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Martin Fessler ().