Bank of Canada Slows Down Retail CBDC Development Amid Focus Shift

• A contingency plan should the need arise was the BOC’s stance on CBDCs.
• Both high-level and ground-level investigations were conducted by the bank itself.

Updates on the Bank of Canada’s (BOC) website indicate that the central bank is halting development of CBDC for retail use. Although a wholesale CBDC was not mentioned in the statement, it was stressed that research was ongoing.

Since the Bank of Canada has already spent a lot of time studying CBDCs, it is moving on to other, more urgent matters. A “contingency plan” should the need arise was the BOC’s stance on CBDCs. As the bank is ready to take on additional duties, its priorities are changing.

Shift of Focus

Particularly worth mentioning is the fact that the retail-focused Real-time Rail payment system is still in the development stages. Payments Canada is the group responsible for running the country’s payment clearing and settlement system. The Bank of Canada is one of more than a hundred members of the group.

The Retail Payment Activities Act of 2021 also mandates increased oversight of retail payments by the Bank of Canada. The legislation states that in November, the central bank must start registering 2,500 small payment service providers that were previously exclusively regulated by anti-money-laundering laws. In 2025, the statute specifies that operational risk requirements must be enforced.

Collaborating with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Digital Currency Initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the BOC has conducted CBDC research.

Both high-level and ground-level investigations were conducted by the bank itself. The bank discovered time and time again that the general population in Canada was uninterested in CBDCs. And that the new currency would bring further problems to the economy and the general people.

The bank has said that, despite its shifting focus, the CBDC research will prove to be important in the event that Canadians, acting via their elected officials, determine in the future that a digital Canadian currency is desired or necessary.

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