Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs): exploring “technical privacy” through the lens of Nigeria’s eNaira (2024)

Central Bank Digital Currencies and financial integrity: finding a new trade-off between privacy and traceability within a changing financial architecture

Journal of banking regulation, 2024

Data Privacy Considerations for Central Bank Digital Currencies in Asia–Pacific Countries

Computer, 2022

Sustainability, Public Security, and Privacy Concerns Regarding Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

Digital Transformation and the Economics of Banking Economic, Institutional, and Social Dimensions, eds. Piotr Łasak, Jonathan Williams, 2023

Over 100 central banks currently research or develop their own central bank digital currency (further CBDC). Four projects recently moved into the production phase. The introduction of CBDC by at least one major central bank in the coming years seems unavoidable, which would form a tipping point. CBDC would then enter the mainstream of the banking sector. This trend requires assessing CBDC projects broader than the central banks do. This chapter considers concerns regarding the introduction of CBDC and its design criteria. Addressing those issues at an early stage allows us to mitigate them. The most obvious concern concerns the central bank money’s public security in the era of growing cyber threats. The other evident concern concerns privacy. However, one particular angle of discussions on CBDC does not get enough attention – sustainability. This chapter assesses whether and how current CBDC projects include sustainability, public security, and privacy. It then addresses areas worth further development to increase the implementation of sustainability by the central banks. Finally, this chapter reconstructs a design of CBDC that would be most desired from the perspective of sustainability, public security, and privacy, showing how taking those perspectives into consideration influences social acceptance of CBDC.

Cryptocurrencies, Central Bank Digital Cash, Traditional Money: Does Privacy Matter?

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Sustainability, Public Security, and Privacy Concerns regarding Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) [POSTPRINT]

Around 100 central banks currently research or develop their own central bank digital currency (further CBDC). Four projects recently moved into the production phase. The introduction of CBDC by at least one major central bank in the coming years seems unavoidable, which would form a tipping point. CBDC would then enter the mainstream of the banking sector. This trend requires assessing CBDC projects broader than the central banks do. This chapter considers concerns regarding the introduction of CBDC and its design criteria. Addressing those issues at an early stage allows us to mitigate them. The most obvious concern concerns the central bank money's public security in the era of growing cyber threats. The other evident concern concerns privacy. However, one particular angle of discussions on CBDC does not get enough attention-sustainability. This chapter assesses whether and how current CBDC projects include sustainability, public security, and privacy. It then addresses areas worth further development to increase the implementation of sustainability by the central banks. Finally, this chapter reconstructs a design of CBDC that would be most desired from the perspective of sustainability, public security, and privacy, showing how taking those perspectives into consideration influences social acceptance of CBDC.

Achieving privacy and accountability in traceable digital currency

IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch., 2020

Several Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) projects are considering the development of a digital currency that is managed on a permissioned blockchain, i.e. only authorized entities are involved in transactions verification. In this paper, we explore the best possible balance between privacy and accountability in such a traceable digital currency. Indeed, in case of suspicion of fraud or money laundering activity, it is important to enable the retrieval of the identity of a payer or a payee involved in a specific transaction. Based on a preliminary analysis of achievable anonymity properties in a transferable, divisible and traceable digital currency systems, we first present a digital currency framework along with the corresponding security and privacy model. Then, we propose a pairing-free traceable digital currency system that reconciles user’s privacy protection and accountability. Our system is proven secure in the random oracle model.

The Six Ways to Build Trust and Reduce Privacy Concern in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

Business digital transformation: Selected cases from industry leaders, 2023

This research found support for a model with six factors influencing trust in a CBDC and found that trust in the CBDC did indeed encourage its adoption. The six factors that influence trust in a CBDC identified in this research are the following: (1) Trust in the government and the central bank issuing a CBDC, (2) expressed guarantees for the user of a CBDC, (3) positive reputation of existing CBDCs implemented in other countries, (4) automation and reduced human involvement achieved by a CBDC technology, (5) trust-building functionality of a CBDC, and (6) privacy features of the CBDC wallet app and back-end processes such as anonymity.

The Curse of Central Bank Digital Cash

Journal of New Finance, 2022

This paper surveys the consequences of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) on personal liberty and privacy. The Central Banks' response to the advent of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has profound implications for financial intermediation, monetary and fiscal policies, financial repression, and surveillance. More than allowing for meddling with money, a CBDC may enable meddling with human free will, posing grave threats to the preservation of freedom.

Protecting the Financial System Regulation using the new technology of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs

Rosinara Ferreira, 2021

This paper will try to demonstrate that, the use of new digital technologies for the financial system with the Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) initiative, should provide some protection to pre-existing laws that were built through the learning of several generations of legislators and socio-economic actors. However, looking ahead, we will see that to achieve a city of future it will be mandatory to anticipate an infrastructure composed of Law and Technology, which revises the traditional models of governance, law, and regulations, and mitigates the pertinent risks by rewriting history. The challenge arises in the face of Cryptocurrencies/Assets and Tokens, which have occupied a significant space in the digital world in the last years, and are outside the best practices implemented by OCDE, FATF regarding Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT), Tax Evasion. There are a large and diverse number of potential reasons why central banks are investigating CBDCs, among them we will see that the replacement of physical currency is one of the milestones of this century for the city of the future.

A Comparative Study of the Design Frameworks of the Ghanaian and Nigerian Central Banks' Digital Currencies (CBDC

FinTech , 2022

This paper discusses critical considerations in the design of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in West Africa through a comparative case study of Ghana’s (eCedi) and Nigeria’s (eNaira) design frameworks. This paper analyses CBDC design options framed through context (digital payment landscape and CBDC objectives), technical aspects (design principles, architecture, risks), use cases, and deployment plans. This study conducted a thematic analysis of official CBDC design documents to identify similarities, differences, and patterns. The results indicate more similarities between the eCedi and eNaira designs than differences. Differences were observed in the CBDC deployment context, risk profiles, and plans. Surprisingly, neither country has articulated the detailed legal and regulatory environments for CBDC. This paper highlights the use of CBDC designs to promote citizens’ welfare by using financially inclusive policy goals within central banking’s welfare functions, thereby extending their traditional role. Policymakers should focus on adaptive legal and policy design outlooks to address uncertainties associated with CBDC. This paper is important because it is one of the first to contribute to a detailed comparison of Ghana and Nigeria’s CBDC design frameworks. Keywords: Ghana; Africa; Nigeria; central bank digital currency; eCedi; eNaira; CBDC; FinTech