The Paypers

The research project would be a one-year contract primarily to build on the Bank of Canada’s ongoing wider research agenda into digital financial technologies and a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The bank will co-operate with the Canada Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) at MIT Media Labs to look at how advanced technologies could influence the possible design of a CBDC.

The agreement follows one week after US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on the responsible development of digital technologies that asked the Federal Reserve Bank to evaluate whether it should create its own digital currency.

A central bank digital currency would allow people to have an account at the central bank itself. In its research, policy-developers are seeking information about what quantity CBDC, in terms of value, people would be comfortable holding in those accounts and what design the digital architecture should have.

Bank of Canada partners MIT to research CBDC