Advancing CBDC: Insights from the 2024 BIS Survey and Emerging Innovations

Introduction

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) represent a pivotal evolution in the global payment ecosystem, blending the stability of sovereign money with the efficiency of digital technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT) and tokenisation. As central banks grapple with declining cash usage, the rise of private cryptoassets, and the need for resilient cross-border payment infrastructures, CBDCs offer a mechanism to preserve monetary sovereignty while fostering innovation. The 2024 BIS survey on CBDCs and crypto, conducted among 93 central banks, provides a comprehensive snapshot of this landscape, revealing accelerated progress in wholesale CBDCs, divergent design approaches, and the influence of stablecoins and tokenisation (Illes et al., 2025). This article synthesizes the survey's key findings, integrates complementary insights from related BIS publications on legal frameworks, system design, and banking implications, and offers visionary analysis on how these developments could reshape core banking systems. By emphasizing interoperability and security, we underscore the potential for CBDCs to integrate seamlessly with existing payment rails, enhancing financial inclusion and settlement efficiency on a global scale.

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Current State of CBDC Exploration

The 2024 BIS survey underscores a near-universal engagement with CBDCs among central banks, with 91% (85 out of 93 respondents) actively exploring retail CBDC, wholesale CBDC, or both. This marks a continuation of trends observed in prior years, but with notable acceleration in wholesale variants, particularly in advanced economies (AEs). Wholesale CBDCs, which function as digital settlement assets for interbank transactions akin to central bank reserves but enhanced with programmability and composability, are at more advanced stages: 38% of AE central banks are piloting them, and 17% are developing live systems (Illes et al., 2025). In contrast, retail CBDCs—digital equivalents of cash for public use—remain exploratory, with only three live issuances in The Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria.

Emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) show a balanced focus, with 35% experimenting on wholesale CBDCs and 27% on retail, driven partly by financial inclusion goals. Overall, the survey highlights a shift toward practical implementation: no new retail CBDCs launched in 2024, but pilots and proofs-of-concept proliferated, reflecting cautious yet progressive policy-making.

• Key Divergences by Economy Type: AEs prioritize preserving central bank money's role amid cash decline (81% cite this as a motivator), while EMDEs emphasize inclusion (e.g., enabling unbanked access without traditional accounts) and payment robustness.
• Legal Foundations: Legal authority for issuance is stronger for wholesale (higher shares across jurisdictions) than retail CBDCs, with one-quarter of EMDEs lacking a basis for the latter. This aligns with findings in BIS (2024a), which notes that existing monetary laws often predate digital innovations, necessitating bespoke frameworks to classify CBDCs as legal tender.

Integrating insights from BIS Working Paper No. 1280, this exploration reveals potential risks: CBDCs could exacerbate bank disintermediation during crises, where rapid shifts from deposits to CBDCs might trigger runs (Bidder et al., 2025). However, calibrated designs—such as holding limits and non-remuneration—could mitigate this, transforming CBDCs from rivals to stabilizers of banking systems.

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Motivations and Design Considerations

Central banks' motivations for CBDC work are multifaceted, rooted in maintaining monetary stability amid technological disruption. The survey identifies preserving central bank money's role as the top driver (cited by over 80% of respondents), followed by payment efficiency and financial stability. For retail CBDCs, AEs focus on e-commerce integration (81%), while EMDEs target person-to-business payments (79%). Wholesale CBDCs are envisioned for interbank settlements, payment-versus-payment, and delivery-versus-payment mechanisms, with some exploring automated margin calls (Illes et al., 2025).

Design features exhibit significant variation, reflecting jurisdictional priorities:

• Core Elements: Most envision tiered distribution (central banks issuing, intermediaries distributing), holding limits to prevent disintermediation, non-remunerated structures, and offline functionality for resilience.
• Technological Choices: DLT adoption is higher for wholesale (56% in AEs, 54% in EMDEs) than retail CBDCs, enabling multi-asset platforms and programmability. For instance, 66% of DLT-based wholesale projects support multiple digital assets, facilitating tokenised settlements.
• Accessibility and Interoperability: About 40% of central banks consider bank-account-independent retail CBDCs, promoting inclusion, while 44% of AEs plan non-resident access, raising cross-border challenges.

Drawing from BIS (2024b) on system design, these choices involve trade-offs in privacy and cyber security. Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) could anonymize transactions while complying with anti-money laundering (AML) standards, but they introduce complexities in quantum-resistant encryption. Our insight here delves deeper: in a two-tier CBDC architecture, hybrid centralized-decentralized models—where core ledgers remain centralized for oversight but peripherals use DLT for efficiency—could optimize scalability. This modularity, as explored in BIS (2025a) on wholesale central bank money, allows for seamless integration with fast payment systems (FPS), potentially reducing settlement times from days to seconds in cross-border contexts. Unlike generic interoperability claims, this approach could specifically address fragmentation in EMDE payment rails, where legacy systems hinder inclusion; by linking CBDCs to FPS like those in BIS Paper No. 151 (Aurazo et al., 2024), central banks could create unified ledgers that automate compliance checks, minimizing errors and enhancing trust without overhauling existing infrastructures.

Furthermore, legal aspects from BIS (2024c) emphasize allocating risks transparently: obligations in the CBDC ecosystem must be defined to assign liabilities (e.g., for fraud) to intermediaries best positioned to mitigate them. An in-depth insight is the potential for CBDCs to evolve conflict-of-laws rules in cross-border disputes. Traditional private international law struggles with digital assets' borderless nature; a multilateral framework, perhaps under BIS auspices, could standardize applicable laws, reducing litigation risks and fostering global adoption. This is particularly visionary for our context, where instant payment solutions could bridge compatible CBDC systems, enabling real-time interlinked settlements without currency conversion frictions.

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Influence of Cryptoassets and Tokenisation

The survey reveals that cryptoassets, including stablecoins, are accelerating CBDC efforts: 43% of respondents intensified wholesale work, and 35% retail, due to these developments (Illes et al., 2025). Stablecoin usage remains limited domestically but is more prevalent cross-border, prompting regulatory responses—45% of jurisdictions have enacted rules, with 22% developing them, often bespoke to address volatility and redemption risks.

Tokenisation emerges as a transformative force: 48% of jurisdictions report engagements, predominantly in AEs (86%), with bonds as the primary asset (69% exploring or issuing tokenised variants). Settlement often uses wholesale CBDCs or traditional deposits, highlighting synergies. BIS Bulletin No. 107 (Aldasoro et al., 2025) complements this, noting tokenisation's potential to streamline OTC bond markets by reducing intermediaries.

Our in-depth insight focuses on tokenisation's implications for financial stability: while it promises atomic settlements (simultaneous asset and payment transfers), it risks amplifying contagion in interconnected DLT networks. In contrast to superficial efficiency gains, a nuanced view reveals that programmable wholesale CBDCs could embed smart contracts for conditional payments, such as escrow in tokenised bond trades, thereby mitigating counterparty risks in volatile markets. Linking to Bidder et al. (2025), this could counteract disintermediation "fast and slow"—rapid runs during crises or gradual shifts to tokenised assets—by ensuring banks retain liquidity buffers through integrated core systems. For EMDEs, where tokenisation is nascent (one in three), our solutions could facilitate leapfrogging: by providing interoperable platforms, we enable central banks to tokenize local assets (e.g., government bonds) while integrating with global FPS, fostering inclusion without exposing systems to crypto volatility.

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Conclusion

The 2024 BIS survey illuminates a maturing CBDC landscape, where wholesale variants lead innovation, driven by the need to counter crypto disruptions and harness tokenisation for efficient settlements. Combined with legal, design, and banking analyses from complementary BIS works, it paints a future where CBDCs enhance rather than disrupt existing ecosystems, promoting precision in monetary policy and reliability in payments (BIS, 2024a, 2024b, 2024c; Aurazo et al., 2024; Bidder et al., 2025). Visionarily, as interoperability challenges are resolved through modular architectures and multilateral frameworks, CBDCs could underpin a borderless payment network, advancing financial inclusion and stability worldwide.

As a leading provider of instant payment solutions and cross-border interbank systems, we invite central banks and financial institutions to collaborate on integrating CBDCs with our secure, scalable platforms. Contact us to explore how our expertise can facilitate your transition to a visionary payment ecosystem.

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References

‍Aldasoro, I., Cornelli, G., Frost, J., Wilkens, P. K., Lewrick, U., & Shreeti, V. (2025). Tokenisation of government bonds: Assessment and roadmap. BIS Bulletin, No. 107. Bank for International Settlements.

Aurazo, J., Banka, H., Frost, J., Kosse, A., & Piveteau, T. (2024). Central bank digital currencies and fast payment systems: Rivals or partners? BIS Papers, No. 151. Bank for International Settlements.

Bidder, R., Jackson, T., & Rottner, M. (2025). CBDC and banks: Disintermediating fast and slow. BIS Working Papers, No. 1280. Bank for International Settlements.

BIS. (2024a). Legal aspects of retail central bank digital currencies. Bank for International Settlements.

BIS. (2024b). Central bank digital currencies: System design. Bank for International Settlements.

BIS. (2024c). [Group of central banks]. Central bank digital currencies: Legal aspects of retail CBDCs. Bank for International Settlements.

BIS. (2025a). Wholesale central bank money in the context of technological innovation. Bank for International Settlements.

Illes, A., Kosse, A., & Wierts, P. (2025). Advancing in tandem – results of the 2024 BIS survey on central bank digital currencies and crypto. BIS Papers, No. 159. Bank for International Settlements.

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