Over millennia, mankind has used hard cash in various forms ranging from shells to gold coins and paper. More recently, cash has become unpopular in political circles, as it effectively restricts states’ power to tax (explicitly or via negative interest rates) or to survey and potentially...

Digital currencies have attracted strong interest in recent years and have the potential to become widely adopted for use in making payments. Public authorities and central banks around the world are closely monitoring developments in digital currencies and studying their implications for the...

New and innovative payment systems are often hailed as historic steps forward. Central banks worldwide have encouraged technological progress in these systems to improve the accessibility and efficiency of payment. This has always been in the self-interest of central banks to fulfil their...

The success of alternative payment systems has led to discussion of various proposals to replace money with a new technology-based system, though many lack a clear idea of what exactly is the "money" they seek to replace. We begin by presenting the explanation of money's role in the economy...

We use a simple model to study whether private payment systems based on bank deposits can provide the optimal level of safety. In the model, bank deposits backed by projects are subject to default risk that can be mitigated by a depositor's ex ante and ex post monitoring. Safe payment...

Central banks around the world are exploring and in some cases even piloting Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). CBDCs promise to realize a broad range of new capabilities, including direct government disbursements to citizens, frictionless consumer payment and money-transfer systems, and a...

In this study, we provide a systemic perspective on central bank digital currencies (CBDC). We separate existing proposals for CBDCs into the perspective of new payment objects, made available by central banks to a broader public, and new payment systems, operated by central banks. From a...

Should a central bank take over the provision of e-money, a circulable electronic liability? We discuss how e-money technology changes the tradeoff between public and private provision, and the tradeoff between e-money and a central bank's existing liabilities like bank notes and reserves. The...

In recent years, there have been rapid technological innovations in retail payments. Such dramatic changes in the economics of payment systems have led to questions regarding whether there is consumer demand for cash. The entry of these new products and services has resulted in significant...