Central Bank Digital Currencies: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have moved from concept to large-scale experimenta- tion, raising intertwined monetary, financial, technical, and legal questions. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of academic and official studies published between 2022 and mid-2025, screening major databases and institutional repositories and synthesizing 38 relevant contributions across six themes: bank intermediation, financial stability, technical design, monetary policy, regulation and international coordination, and financial inclusion and public trust. Methodologically, we apply transparent search, inclusion, and extraction protocols and classify evidence by approach (theoretical, empirical, case study/survey). The recent literature is dominated by formal models, complemented by nascent empirical work from pilots and market reactions. Three findings recur. First, disintermediation and run risks are not inherent to CBDC but hinge on design: tiered or low remuneration, quantitative holding limits, and —most commonly- two-tier retail architectures mitigate outflows while preserving competition in deposits. Second, an interest-bearing CBDC can strengthen policy-rate pass-through and broaden the toolkit (e.g., contingent remuneration), at the cost of careful calibration to safeguard stability. Third, privacy is pivotal for adoption; “privacy-by-design” for small transactions alongside robust AML/CFT is a consistent requirement. We contribute a comparative policy matrix that maps design choices (interest, limits, archi- tecture, privacy) to their trade-offs across outcomes, offering practical guidance for phased implementation. Remaining gaps include limited real-world evidence, cross-border spillovers, dis- tributional effects, and questions of scalability and cyber-resilience. Overall, the SLR supports cautious, incremental rollouts that complement, rather than displace, private intermediation.

Keywords

• Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)
• Bank Disintermediation
• Financial Stability
• Monetary Policy Transmission
• CBDC Technical Design and Architecture

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