A recent report published by the U.S Treasury Department has outlined the administration’s plans for financial alternatives like CBDCs and their role in future payment.
The report was submitted to President Joe Biden in response to an Executive Order Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets, which was signed by the President earlier this year in March.
After conducting research on the innovation in the financial sector, especially payment alternatives like stablecoins and other instant payment systems, the department concluded that traditional payment systems can be “slow, difficult to adapt, and challenging for some consumers or businesses to access.”
In the spirit of financial inclusion, the Treasury Department recommended the U.S. administration focus on the development of a U.S. CBDC.
The report outlined the potential design choices for CBDCs, namely two, a wholesale CBDC and a retail CBDC. The use cases were divided into three categories: Money (store of value), Payment System (instant settlement), and Intermediaries.
In the first category, Wholesale CBDCs could be better suited for financial transactions involving large sums of money. “A CBDC could serve as a settlement asset for ‘digital clearinghouses,’ which could convert one type of digital asset into another, with the CBDC acting as a highly liquid bridge between assets” the report added. Retail CBDCs, on the other hand, could be used as an alternative to cash, credit cards, and cheques.
While recognizing that a CBDC would need to facilitate instant settlements, the report suggested automation of bill payments, and payrolls using CBDCs.
The report also mentioned improving cross-border payments using a U.S. CBDC that could be designed to interoperate with
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