📝 [Analysis] Central banks and distributed ledger technology - World Economic Forum

Since 2014, central banks have been investigating the applicability of digital ledger technology for various banking obligations, with some 40 central banks doing so today. While blockchain, as any new technology, is full of unknowns, experiment and research points to significant advantages from central bank adoption of CBDCs and DLT. In this World Economic Forum white paper, ten use cases are put forward:

1. Retail CBDC for consumer use similar to physical cash or alternative bank deposits.
2. Wholesale CBDCs for interbank settlment on the commercial level.
3. Interbank securities settlement to allow simultaneous, peer-to-peer asset trades.
4. A primary or back-up domestic payment system in case of emergencies.
5. Sovereign bonds issued and managed by states who act as nodes.
6. Financial tracking of AML/KYC information as a unified information outlet.
7. An information sharing site between public and private entities for financial data flows.
8. Trade finance issued on a distributed ledger to increase domestic and global efficiency.
9. Cash flow supply train to track and analyze large cash flows between commercial and central banks.
10. Blockchain database for the EU's SEPA credit system to increase overall efficiency between member nations.