Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Course

Initial attention was not given to the idea of a Central Bank Digital Currency, which was an obscure concept. The announcement of Facebook's Libra project, June 2019, caused a shift in the central bank community about CBDC. As central bankers considered the challenge of competing with giant technology companies with billions of users, what was once an intriguing thought experiment about the future money became a debate about the validity of the traditional payments system.

This course is for anyone who wants to understand the future of money and how it will affect us all. Everybody is affected by the different forms of money, regardless of whether you're a consumer or a business owner. This course will provide a foundation for understanding current research and activities around CBDC.

CBDC's technology allows money to be programmed in a way that is simply not possible with cash. This programming capability could make it possible to access financial services from any smartphone anywhere in the world. It will close the gap that has kept more than 1.7 million people out of traditional financial services.