According to Cointelegraph, the Bank of Canada is scaling back its retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) work and turning to more pressing payment system research and policy development. Although wholesale CBDC was not mentioned, research is still continuing.
The Bank of Canada had argued that contingency planning for a CBDC was needed, but is now shifting its focus to broader payments systems research as other payment issues come to the fore.
Payments Canada continues to develop Real-time Rail, a real-time payments system for retail, and the association has more than 100 members, including the Bank of Canada.
In addition, under the Retail Payment Activities Act of 2021, the Bank of Canada will strengthen its supervision of retail payments, with plans to begin registering 2,500 small payment service providers in November and implement operational risk standards by 2025.
The Bank of Canada, in partnership with the Bank for International Settlements and the MIT Media Labâs Digital Currency Initiative, conducted CBDC research and found little public interest in CBDCs, noting new pitfalls they could bring.
Despite the change in priorities, the central bank said its CBDC research could still be of significant value in the future.
