Trust, Privacy, and Adoption: A Global Policy Framework for Central Bank Digital Currencies

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) have transitioned from theoretical concepts to operational realities across multiple jurisdictions. While they promise improved payment efficiency and financial inclusion, public trust, privacy, and user adoption have emerged as the critical determinants of success. Users fear that CBDCs could enable government surveillance, while regulators require sufficient oversight to prevent illicit finance, which creates a fundamental tension between privacy and compliance. This paper addresses the question: how can policymakers craft a global policy framework for retail CBDCs that balances user privacy and trust with necessary regulatory oversight, in order to maximize public adoption? Employing a structured narrative synthesis of peer-reviewed empirical literature and case analysis of four major CBDC implementations, the Bahamas Sand Dollar, Nigeria’s eNaira, China’s e-CNY, and the proposed digital euro, the study develops a seven-component global policy framework organized across four architectural layers. We additionally formulate seven testable propositions linking each framework component to adoption and trust outcomes, providing a structured agenda for future quantitative research. Evidence from randomized survey experiments shows that strong privacy safeguards raise adoption willingness by up to 60, underscoring that privacy is not merely a civil liberty concern but a prerequisite for widespread CBDC success. The comparative cross-case assessment suggests that broader alignment with the proposed framework components appears conceptually consistent with more favorable trust and adoption patterns across the cases examined.