Legal Aspects of Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Bank and Monetary Law Considerations

Download or read book Legal Aspects of Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Bank and Monetary Law Considerations written by Wouter Bossu and published by INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND. This book was released on 2020-11-20 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the legal foundations of central bank digital currency (CBDC) under central bank and monetary law. Absent strong legal foundations, the issuance of CBDC poses legal, financial and reputational risks for central banks. While the appropriate design of the legal framework will up to a degree depend on the design features of the CBDC, some general conclusions can be made. First, most central bank laws do not currently authorize the issuance of CBDC to the general public. Second, from a monetary law perspective, it is not evident that “currency” status can be attributed to CBDC. While the central bank law issue can be solved through rather straithforward law reform, the monetary law issue poses fundmental legal policy challenges.