The latest BIS survey shows that CBDC work remains widespread. Wholesale projects are generally further advanced than retail designs, reflecting the different technical and institutional questions each model raises.
CBDC is not one product
A central bank digital currency is digital money issued by a central bank, but that definition leaves many design choices open. A retail CBDC is intended for use by households and businesses in everyday payments. A wholesale CBDC is designed for financial institutions and market infrastructure.
The distinction matters because wholesale systems can target settlement efficiency in areas such as securities or interbank transactions, while retail systems raise questions about wallets, privacy, offline use, limits, remuneration, distribution and the relationship with commercial-bank deposits.
The latest global picture
In its 2024 survey of 93 central banks, published in August 2025, the BIS reported that 91% of respondents were exploring either a retail CBDC, a wholesale CBDC or both. It also found that wholesale CBDC work was generally at a more advanced stage than retail CBDC work. The participating central banks represented 78% of the world’s population and 94% of global economic output.
These figures show broad experimentation, not a promise that most countries will launch a public retail CBDC. Exploration can mean research, proof-of-concept work, pilots or design studies, and the intended use cases vary significantly by jurisdiction.
Why wholesale CBDCs are attracting attention
Financial-market settlement involves multiple institutions, ledgers and reconciliation steps. A tokenised form of central-bank money could potentially provide a settlement asset that interacts directly with tokenised securities or other digital financial assets.
The BIS has also been studying unified-ledger approaches that combine tokenised central-bank reserves, commercial-bank money and assets on programmable infrastructure. The emphasis is on improving efficiency while retaining the two-tier structure in which commercial banks interact with customers and central banks provide settlement assets.
Retail CBDCs face a different set of questions
Retail projects must answer questions about adoption and coexistence with existing payment methods. Users already have cards, instant-payment apps, bank transfers and mobile wallets. A new public digital-money instrument needs a clear reason to exist without unnecessarily displacing useful private-sector infrastructure.
Privacy and data governance are also central. A digital payment system can create more transaction data than cash, so design choices around identity, data minimisation, intermediaries and lawful access matter. Offline functionality can also be relevant where connectivity is unreliable or resilience is a priority.
Interoperability may matter more than the wallet
Even a well-designed CBDC can have limited value if it becomes an isolated payment island. Central banks are therefore considering interoperability with existing payment systems and, in some cases, with other CBDC or tokenised-money systems.
The broader fintech opportunity is in infrastructure: identity, compliance, APIs, custody, merchant software, settlement and integration. Whether a CBDC succeeds as a consumer product or mainly as financial-market infrastructure will depend on these surrounding layers as much as on the digital currency itself.
What to watch next
For fintech teams, investors and users, the important question is no longer whether financial services will become more digital. The practical questions are how quickly new infrastructure can scale, how safely it can be operated, and which parts of the customer experience genuinely improve as a result. Regulation, interoperability, fraud controls, resilience and transparent pricing will remain as important as product design.
