Instantly Deposited Into Digital Wallets

Depending on a CBDC platform’s structure, CBDCs could be deposited directly into digital wallets nearly instantly. In the model where citizens had accounts at their central bank, stimulus payments from the central bank could be delivered in seconds, assuming adequate Know Your Customer (KYC) checks were in place at a national level. In the indirect two-tier model, where commercial banks remain central to the financial system, stimulus via CBDCs could still be faster than today’s model.

Proponents of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) often point to the additional fiscal policy options that CBDCs enable such as efficient stimulus payment delivery. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this weakness in the U.S. financial syste...