IMF to Release CBDC Handbook Amid Rising Demand for Guidance

Bo Li, the deputy managing director of the International Monetary

Fund (IMF), announced in a recent speech that the organization is planning to unveil a CBDC handbook in response to the enormous demand for guidance pertaining to CBDCs. 

Li stated that there is a pressing need to meet the requirements of central banks that are planning to launch CBDCs, and that the IMF has already interacted with approximately 30 countries that sought assistance over the past two years. Over 40 countries have already engaged with the IMF, according to Li, who stressed that "CBDC capacity development is crucial to circumvent a digital divide."

Li also stated that the inadequate design of a CBDC could give rise to a variety of risks. To tackle the information gap, the IMF intends to develop a CBDC handbook that will serve as "the foundation for capacity development."

According to an IMF staff report, the future handbook will have a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach, furnishing information, empirical findings, experience, and frameworks to evaluate CBDC. 

According to the report, the IMF has presented a preliminary table of contents for the CBDC handbook, which includes 19 chapters covering both technical and policy matters, and is divided into broad sections. The IMF anticipates that it will take around four to five years to complete the handbook, with Japan providing substantial funding.

As policymakers deliberate more concrete questions relating to CBDCs, the IMF's advice has had to become more tailored to country circumstances, and more normative and anchored in policy experience and frameworks, as per the report. The statement suggests that the IMF will give priority to providing assistance to countries that are systemically important, as well as those that are quickly implementing CBDCs but may have weak regulatory standards or limited capacity.

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