IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2204.01535.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), Disintermediation and Financial Privacy: The Case of the Bahamian Sand Dollar

Author

Listed:
  • Kilian Wenker

Abstract

The fast-growing, market-driven demand for cryptocurrencies worries central banks, as their monetary policy could be completely undermined. Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could offer a solution, yet our understanding of their design and consequences is in its infancy. This non-technical paper examines how The Bahamas has designed the Sand Dollar, the first real-world instance of a retail CBDC. It contrasts the Sand Dollar with definition-based specifications. I then develop a scenario analysis to illustrate commercial bank risks. In this process, the central bank becomes a deposit monopolist, leading to high funding risks, disintermediation risks, and solvency risks for the com-mercial banking sector. I argue that restrictions and caps will be the new specifications of a regulatory framework for CBDCs if disintermediation in the banking sector is to be prevented. I identify the anonymity of CBDCs as a comparative disadvantage that will affect their adoption. These findings provide insight into governance problems facing central banks, and coherently lead to the design of the Sand Dollar. I conclude by suggesting that combating cryptocurrencies is a task that cannot be solved by a CBDC.

Suggested Citation

  • Kilian Wenker, 2022. "Retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), Disintermediation and Financial Privacy: The Case of the Bahamian Sand Dollar," Papers 2204.01535, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2204.01535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.01535
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Medina Ayta Mohammed & Carmen De-Pablos-Heredero & José Luis Montes Botella, 2024. "The Role of Financial Sanctions and Financial Development Factors on Central Bank Digital Currency Implementation," FinTech, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-16, February.
    2. Kwami Ahiabenu, 2022. "A Comparative Study of the Design Frameworks of the Ghanaian and Nigerian Central Banks’ Digital Currencies (CBDC)," FinTech, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-15, August.
    3. Kjartan Sigurðsson & Grétar Þór Eyþórsson & Helga Kristjánsdóttir, 2023. "Digital Currencies, Swot Analysis," Baltic Journal of Economic Studies, Publishing house "Baltija Publishing", vol. 9(3).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2204.01535. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.