Central bank digital currencies could help improve financial inclusion

People are using cash less, and plastic more. But this presents a problem for unbanked and underbanked people. There are still a significant number of Canadians who don’t have a bank account. They can’t participate fully in the digital economy, but central bank digital currencies could help them do that. The Bank of Canada is one of the central banks considering a digital currency, and one of its main benefits is inclusion, says Katrin Tinn, an Assistant Professor of Finance at McGill. A CBDC would be like a physical dollar in that anyone could hold them, and whether or not someone has a bank account. But because they are digital, they could also be used make digital transactions through e-commerce sites, with the added certainty of the backing of a country’s central bank.