About 20 percent of 66 central banks surveyed by the BIS said they were likely to issue a digital currency within the next six years, up from around 10 percent a year earlier. In all, 80 percent of central banks said they were looking at the technology, up from seven in 10 surveyed last year. Five central banks, including those in Japan, Britain and the eurozone, said on Tuesday they were joining forces to look at the case for issuing CBDCs. Of the central banks surveyed by the BIS, around a third were from advanced economies and the remainder from emerging markets. The Hong Kong and Thai central banks said on Wednesday they had moved closer to using CBDCs to make cross-border payments more efficient.
