How CBDCs Could Reshape Global Finance: Design Choices, Not Technology, Will Decide

Central bank digital currencies could make cross-border payments cheaper and faster, strengthen central banks' grip on monetary policy, and simultaneously introduce new channels of financial instability — and which of these outcomes dominates depends almost entirely on design choices and international cooperation, not on the technology itself. That is the consistent conclusion emerging from analysis by the Bank for International Settlements, the Federal Reserve, and academic researchers examining hypothetical CBDCs. No major jurisdiction had launched a CBDC as of these sources' publication dates, so every claim about impact is prospective rather than observed.

Introduction to Central Bank Digital Currencies

A central bank digital currency is a digital form of central bank money, distinct from commercial bank deposits and from cryptocurrencies issued by private actors. Its systemic significance lies in where it would sit: directly on the central bank's balance sheet, available — in retail designs — to households and firms, or — in wholesale designs — confined to financial institutions settling large-value obligations.

The most consequential question for the global financial architecture is not whether any single country issues a CBDC, but whether different countries' CBDCs can work together. A joint report released in July 2021 by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, the BIS Innovation Hub, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank concluded that CBDCs "have the potential to enhance the efficiency of cross-border payments, as long as countries work together." The report was explicitly exploratory: it assumed wide CBDC adoption and examined cross-border implications, while noting that most central bank investigations to that point focused on domestic issues and that many design and policy decisions remained unresolved.

Improving Cross-Border Payments: Interoperability Models

The efficiency promise of CBDCs for international payments is often asserted but rarely explained. The BIS-led joint report provides the concrete mechanism: facilitation of international payments with CBDCs "can be achieved through different degrees of integration and cooperation, ranging from basic compatibility with common standards to the establishment of international payment infrastructures." In other words, there is a spectrum of interoperability, and each step along it demands progressively deeper cross-border governance.

At the least integrated end sit compatible standards: countries design their domestic CBDCs independently but align technical and regulatory conventions — message formats, data standards, compliance requirements — so payments can pass between systems without bespoke reconciliation. This requires coordination but not shared infrastructure.

A middle tier involves interlinked systems, where separate CBDC infrastructures are connected through technical bridges that allow one system's participants to transact directly with another's. The most ambitious tier is a single international platform: a shared infrastructure on which multiple jurisdictions' CBDCs operate, effectively replacing today's chain of correspondent banking relationships with a common settlement layer.

The report's analysis highlights two conditions for any of these models to deliver benefits: multilateral collaboration on macro-financial consequences, and interoperability between the CBDCs themselves. Without those, a CBDC is a domestic instrument with little bearing on the international payment architecture.

CBDC Design Choices and Monetary Policy Transmission

Monetary policy effects hinge on whether a CBDC pays interest and how convenient it is to hold. A BIS working paper by Rodney Garratt, Jiaheng Yu and Haoxiang Zhu, focused on the United States monetary system — characterized by large excess reserves, with the interest rate on reserves (IOR) as the main policy tool — explores how a CBDC offering payment convenience and potentially paying interest might affect how changes in the IOR rate feed through to deposit rates. Their model accounts for differences in depositor benefits and loan costs across banks of different sizes, and finds that large banks hold a competitive advantage that a CBDC could amplify or reduce, depending on design choices.

The mechanism is intuitive: if households can hold a safe, convenient, remunerated central bank liability, banks must compete for deposits, changing the pass-through of policy rates to the rates depositors actually receive. A study of CBDC implications for Kenya, published in 2025 by Timothy Maina, similarly concludes that CBDCs could give central banks more control over monetary policy — though the degree of control depends on specific design and implementation choices.

Design also shapes the international dimension. Federal Reserve analysis of a hypothetical U.S. CBDC notes that account limits and remuneration choices influence a CBDC's usefulness in international payments, and that these considerations apply to any payment instrument or system, not just CBDCs. The same analysis warns of "some potential for the erosion of the dollar's role as medium of exchange if a U.S. CBDC is not issued or has unattractive design features" — depending, notably, on the design features of other CBDCs or foreign-currency stablecoins.

Systemic Risks: Financial Disintermediation and Cybersecurity

The same features that make a CBDC attractive — safety, convenience, potentially interest — are what make it destabilizing in stress. Maina's study identifies cybersecurity threats, financial disintermediation, and impacts on traditional banking systems as the principal risks accompanying CBDC introduction, alongside benefits for financial inclusion and reduced transaction costs, particularly for the unbanked.

The disintermediation mechanism has a historical analogue. A SUERF policy note on the monetary policy and financial stability implications of CBDCs cites research showing that the mere presence of safe deposits in institutions other than banks played a significant role in triggering bank runs during the French Depression of 1930–31. The novelty with CBDCs, the note argues, is that they would provide access to a safe asset that — unlike physical cash — could potentially be held in large volumes, in the absence of safeguards, and at no cost, accelerating "digital runs." A deposit flight into central bank money during stress could impair bank lending and, by extension, the transmission of monetary policy itself.

Cybersecurity is the second structural risk: a central bank digital currency concentrates settlement activity in a system whose compromise would have systemic consequences, which is why robust security measures are treated as essential rather than optional. Maina's analysis adds that CBDC success depends on strong regulatory frameworks, technological infrastructure, and addressing privacy concerns, and recommends a cautious, incremental implementation approach.

CBDC Design Choices and Systemic Consequences

The table below maps specific, evidence-based design features to their logical consequences across the three dimensions of the financial system this article examines. Read it as a trade-off matrix: nearly every choice that strengthens one dimension weakens another, which is why there is no single "best" CBDC design — only a series of balances between competing policy goals.

The pattern across the rows is the article's central finding: making a CBDC interest-bearing enhances monetary policy control while creating disintermediation risk; widening access for inclusion purposes enlarges the population that could flee into it during stress; and the cross-border benefits of deep interoperability are available only to the extent countries accept the shared governance those models demand.

Navigating the CBDC Landscape: A Path Forward

Central banks and policymakers must prioritize international cooperation and careful design choices to realize the benefits of CBDCs while mitigating systemic risks to financial stability and monetary policy. The evidence supports a specific reading of what that means in practice: the BIS-led joint report frames further exploration of design choices and their macro-financial implications as essential to achieving public welfare benefits while preserving stability; Maina's study recommends a cautious, incremental approach anchored in strong regulatory frameworks; and the SUERF note argues that research on CBDC monetary policy implications would benefit from greater clarity on how they interact with different financial market structures — including whether effects differ between bank-based and capital market-based systems.

The observable signal to watch is the publication of internationally agreed-upon standards or frameworks for CBDC interoperability and risk management by major financial institutions like the BIS or IMF. Until such frameworks exist, the cross-border efficiency gains that motivate much of the CBDC debate remain conditional — a potential that the 2021 joint report explicitly tied to countries working together, not a property any single jurisdiction can deliver alone.

Sources

• Central bank digital currencies for cross-border payments — Bank for International Settlements
• Implications of a U.S. CBDC for International Payments and the Role of the Dollar — Federalreserve
• The case for convenience: how CBDC design choices impact monetary policy pass-through — Bank for International Settlements
• Effect of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) on the Glo — IDEAS
• More than an intellectual game — SUERF