Monetary Policy and Digital Currencies

This article examines the consequences for monetary policy of the issuance of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins, which are broadly similar. These consequences should impact the transmission mechanism above all, with risks of disintermediation for all economies and of increased asymmetries and dollarization for emerging and developing economies. Moreover, the interest rate channel could be strengthened by compensating CBDC at an interest rate pegged to the key rate. Concerning monetary policy goals, inflation, economic growth, and money supply could temporarily accelerate. Above all, the exchange rate could become more volatile, making it more difficult to maintain a target rate. In normal times, the implementation of monetary policy would generally be little affected, unless a real-time monetary policy were to be adopted.