The United States Treasury Department is continuing to consider design decisions relating to the introduction of a central bank digital currency. Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang gave an audience at the Atlantic Council a rundown on March 1 of technical and policy issues the Treasury-led CBDC Working Group is looking at.

Liang looked at both wholesale and retail CBDC (wCBDC and rCBDC), saying wCBDC raised more technical questions, whereas an rCBDC involved access issues. She mentioned in particular that “institutions not currently eligible for central bank accounts” could be granted access to a wCBDC.

A wCBDC could be used for tokenized interbank settlements or securities transactions as well, Liang said. It could also support stablecoins:

“A wholesale CBDC might also be used as a backing asset for stablecoins, which could make it easier to transfer value among stablecoins, in addition to supporting greater interoperability and choice.”