If you’ve ever sent money to another country, you know the drill. It’s expensive, slow, and often opaque—you’re never quite sure when the money will arrive or how much will be skimmed off in fees along the way. These are not new problems; they are long-standing challenges baked into the very architecture of global finance.

But what if we could start over? Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)—digital versions of a country’s official currency—present a rare opportunity to do just that. According to a landmark G20 report from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), an institution owned by the world’s central banks, we are at a “clean slate” moment. We have a chance to fix the deep-seated frictions in cross-border payments, but this window of opportunity is closing fast, and the path forward is filled with surprising challenges.

Here are the five most impactful takeaways from the report that reveal the future of your money.

1. We Have a Fleeting “Clean Slate” to Redesign Global Finance

Central banks have a unique, one-time opportunity to design a new international payment system from the ground up. This isn’t simply because CBDCs are new technology. The real opportunity stems from the fact that a significant number of central banks are simultaneously exploring CBDCs. This historic convergence allows for global coordination from the very beginning, creating a chance to sidestep the legacy issues that plague today’s system—such as limited operating hours, long transaction chains, and convoluted compliance checks. A new system could be designed to be faster, cheaper, and more transparent from day one.

However, this opportunity is perishable. The report warns that as individual countries race to develop their own domestic CBDCs, they risk creating new digital borders and “unintended barriers” if they don’t coordinate during these early design stages. The chance to build a truly global, interoperable system requires international cooperation now, before incompatible systems become entrenched.

The “clean slate” advantage of CBDCs has an expiry date.

2. The Real Revolution Isn’t the Coin, It’s Who Gets to Use It

The most radical change proposed by CBDCs isn’t the digital technology itself, but a fundamental shift in who gets to access central bank money. In today’s correspondent banking system, an international payment hops through a long chain of intermediary banks, each adding time and cost to the transaction.

The BIS report outlines new access models that could upend this structure. Central banks are considering everything from a “closed” model (domestic institutions only) to an “indirect” model (access via an intermediary). But the most transformative of these is “direct access,” a model where foreign financial institutions and payment service providers (PSPs) could directly hold and transact in a country’s wholesale CBDC (a version of the digital currency accessible only to financial institutions, as opposed to a retail CBDC for the general public) without needing a local intermediary bank. This could dramatically shorten transaction chains, slash costs, and boost competition, fundamentally rewiring the plumbing of international finance.

3. There Are Three Competing Blueprints for a Global Digital Currency Network

If countries agree to connect their CBDCs, how would they do it? The report distills the complex technical possibilities into three core models for interoperability, each with its own trade-offs.

• Compatibility: This is the simplest approach, where countries agree on common standards—like a universal adapter for electronics. Each nation’s CBDC system remains separate, but they speak the same technical language (e.g., messaging formats, data requirements), making it easier for financial firms to operate across them. It’s the least costly option but may not deliver the biggest efficiency gains.
• Interlinking: This model involves building direct bridges between national CBDC systems. These “links” could be simple bilateral connections between two countries or a more advanced “hub and spoke” model where a central hub connects multiple national systems, allowing them to transact with each other.
• A Single System: This is the most ambitious blueprint: a single, shared platform that hosts multiple CBDCs from different countries. This common infrastructure could be the most efficient model, as it most easily facilitates the “direct access” for foreign PSPs that creates the shortest possible transaction chains. However, it also presents the greatest upfront costs and the most complex governance challenges, requiring deep international agreement.

The report makes it clear there is “no ‘one size fits all’ model.” The solutions with the greatest potential to improve global payments, like a single system, are also the most challenging and costly to implement.

4. The Biggest Risk Isn’t Hacking—It’s Economics

While most people’s minds jump to cybersecurity when thinking about digital money, the risks that truly concern the world’s central bankers are macroeconomic. Their guiding principle, as stated in the report, is to “do no harm” to financial stability.

The primary risk they identify is “currency substitution.” This is the danger that in countries with weaker economies or less stable currencies, citizens might abandon their local currency in favor of a more stable foreign CBDC. Widespread adoption of a foreign digital dollar or euro, for example, could undermine a nation’s ability to conduct its own monetary policy and maintain financial stability. A related concern is the potential for increased capital flow volatility. CBDCs could make it easier for massive amounts of money to move across borders almost instantly, which could heighten the risk of financial contagion and destabilize economies during times of stress.

But here is the most surprising truth: the report notes that CBDCs could also become a powerful tool to manage these very risks. Because CBDCs are programmable, capital flow management measures could be “directly embedded into the CBDC software.” This could give policymakers a more precise and efficient toolkit for maintaining stability, turning a potential vulnerability into a strength.

5. You Can’t Opt Out of the Future of Money

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive takeaway is that this conversation involves every country—even those with no plans to issue a CBDC. The global financial system is deeply interconnected, and the design choices made by nations pursuing CBDCs will inevitably impact everyone.

The report delivers a stark warning to any jurisdiction considering sitting on the sidelines:

Even jurisdictions not planning to issue a CBDC ought to be involved in this work as they will still be part of this new potential cross-border payments landscape.

In other words, staying out of the conversation doesn’t mean you won’t be affected; it just means you won’t have a say in the new rules of the road. The future of global payments will be shaped by those who show up to design it.

Conclusion: A Fork in the Road for Global Payments

Central Bank Digital Currencies have opened a historic, but brief, window of opportunity to rebuild global payments for the 21st century. The report from the Bank for International Settlements is not just a technical analysis; it’s a call to action. It stresses that international coordination is essential now to seize the “clean slate” moment and build a more inclusive and efficient system.

The world’s central banks now face a choice: will they settle for basic compatibility, build selective bridges through interlinking, or seize this moment to create a truly unified single system for global finance?

Sources –

Main Article –

Options for access to and interoperability of CBDCs for cross-border payments, July 2022, Report to the G20, available at https://www.bis.org/publ/othp52.pdf