Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and other digital currencies –June 2026
It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with all of the announcements from a raft of central banks and think tanks but here are some that caught my attention:
CBDCS
Resources, Reports and Announcements
• The minutes of the Bank of England’s CBDC Academic Advisory Group - January 2026 were published and covered a number of issues:
o Does the digital pound design meet best practice for a secure provision
o Is the digital pound likely to meet the core objective of promoting payments innovation
o Holding limits for systemic stablecoins and a potential digital pound
o Is the digital pound consistent with the Bank’s statutory objectives
o Is the digital pound likely to meet the core objective of money uniformity, and is it the best option
o Can the digital pound be financially viable for the public and private sectors
• In the first speech by the new governor of the Bank of Korea, he referred to the Hangang Pilot Project (a retail CBDC initiative) and deposit tokens—while noticeably avoiding any mention of private stablecoins. This is consistent with the approach taken by a number of central banks in the region.
• China announced plans to include 12 more commercial banks under the umbrella of its central bank-backed digital currency, in an effort to scale up adoption of the digital yuan as it transitions from a cash alternative to an interest-bearing deposit instrument as set out in its latest five-year plan. A draft Finance Law recognised the digital currency as fiat currency equivalent to cash took effect in January.
• The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced that it is looking to reposition the eNaira, amid limited take-up for the central bank digital currency. The CBDC, the first in Africa, was launched in October 2021 and remains one of only three retail CBDCs operational globally. However, in its Nigeria Payments System Vision 2028 published on June 5, the CBN acknowledged that adoption of the eNaira had been slow due to limited stakeholder engagement and buy-in.
• The Review of International Public Economy issued a paper entitled “Central bank digital currencies and the global monetary system”. It examined the political economy surrounding CBDC adoption from a broad perspective encompassing most of the major potential effects of CBDCs. It then used this analysis to map the global CBDC landscape, identifying five major groups of CBDC policies based on their primary goals, and considering which countries are likely to fall into each group and which CBDC models they may adopt.
o 1. reinforcing monetary sovereignty
o 2. advancing the domestic financial system
o 3. strengthening domestic governance capacities
o 4. reshaping the international monetary system
o 5. cautious, wait-and-see approaches
• The IMF issued a FinTech note on Central Bank Exploration of Tokenized Reserves. Key findings include:
o Central banks exploring tokenised reserves as a way to preserve the safety, liquidity, and policy role of central bank money within tokenised ecosystems by enabling risk-free settlement and support for more efficient, automated, and resilient wholesale payment systems
o To ensure policy effectiveness, central banks must align their approach to implementing tokenised reserves with their policy objectives by ensuring they reflect the desired levels of control, risk tolerance, and authority over issuance, access, data, and system continuity
o Although tokenisation may not fundamentally affect central banks’ ability to implement monetary policy, it could introduce enhancements such as automated or programmable liquidity management, which may require changes to governance, legal frameworks, and risk management
o Alternative solutions to tokenised reserves exist—such as RTGS links, omnibus accounts, and privately issued tokenised money. Each offers varying degrees of risk, cost, control, programmability, and alignment with policy objectives
o As central banks explore the potential of tokenised reserves, they may adopt varying strategic approaches—guided by policy goals, market readiness, and institutional capacity, and supported by research, testing, and legal preparation.
Stablecoins
• The UK’s FCA and the Bank of England issued a call for input on Tokenisation - A joint vision from the authorities for UK wholesale financial markets. It is part of the government‘s Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy which sets out an ambition for the UK to be at the forefront of innovation in wholesale finance, supported by trusted institutions, effective regulation and world class market infrastructure. The Call for Input focuses on how the UK’s authorities will support the adoption of tokenised securities, and how market infrastructure can facilitate their issuance, trading, settlement and safekeeping.
• The House of Lords issued its report - Stablecoins: waiting for regulation. Key messages include:
o The UK is currently behind the US and the EU in developing a regulatory regime
o Regulators should stick to current timelines and avoid further delay
o Current proposals for systemic issuers to hold unremunerated backing assets, holding limits for stablecoins, and restrictions on commercial banks issuing them would set the UK diverging from international approaches
o The Bank of England should undertake more detailed modelling of how holding limits could affect high-value use cases
o HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the FCA should consider whether existing legal frameworks are sufficient to detect and deter illicit activity involving private, unhosted and unregulated wallets, and whether further legislation may be needed.
o HM Treasury should provide more detail on how it will determine when a stablecoin becomes systemic
o The FCA should reconsider whether it is appropriate to apply a k-factor requirement that increases with the volume of stablecoins issued.
• The Bank of England announced in May that it was considering less conservative restrictions on stablecoins following industry feedback – especially on holding limits and a requirement on issuers to hold at least 40% of assets in non-interest bearing assets.
• Project Agorá – organised by the BIS and the IIF, has demonstrated that tokenisation can help to address inefficiencies in wholesale cross-border payments in a safe and secure manner through multi-currency settlement using tokenised money at scale, while preserving the safety and integrity of settlement in central bank reserves.
The project has shown the possibility of completing atomic settlement of wholesale cross-border transactions using tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits. The findings indicate this is achievable securely and with finality across currencies and jurisdictions.
• A recent report by RWA.io, with contributions from 15 of the world’s leading financial and technological institutions, suggests that tokenised bank deposits will become a fundamental pillar of the next-generation digital financial system. According to the research, tokenised deposits could enhance resilience, enabling high-level institutional settlements directly on blockchain infrastructures. This evolution not only promises to enhance transaction efficiency but also paves the way for a multi-layered system where stablecoin, CBDCs (central bank digital currencies), and tokenised deposits coexist and integrate.
• The Bank for International Settlements issued a working paper on Tokenomics and blockchain fragmentation. The paper argues that public, permissionless blockchains are structurally predisposed to fragment, not consolidate, because their decentralised consensus mechanisms require congestion rents (high fees) to incentivise validators. These fees push users to cheaper chains, splintering activity and undermining the network effects that make money valuable. Stablecoins inherit this fragmentation, creating multiple non fungible versions of the “same” token across chains. It concluded that a unified monetary system requires a trust anchor—central banks—not decentralised consensus.
• In June, S&P Global issued a report - Credit FAQ: How Stablecoins' Growth Could Affect U.S. Banks. It noted that key factors that could increase the use of stablecoins in the U.S. include:
o Broader tokenisation of real-world assets, which could unlock stablecoin adoption for transaction settlement
o Greater regulatory clarity
o The development of integrated, wallet-based financial services.
• Traditional banks are building consortia to enable interoperability of tokenised deposits. The Clearing House (TCH) has brought together the largest names JPMorgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, and others to form a shared issuance network. Smaller banks have coalesced around the Hazel Network. Mid-sized institutions are forming the Cari Network. A similar dynamic is playing out in the UK, where major banks and the central bank are coordinating on interoperability standards via the Great British Tokenised Deposit programme (GBTD).
• McKinsey & Co. issued a report - The next age of fintech: AI, digital assets, and new paths to success.
• Ubyx has issued a series of white papers looking at agentic payments as an enabler for commerce at machine speed.
Naresh Aggarwal
14 June 2026
