European Union: Digital Euro moving to implementation phase
The European Central Bank has made substantial progress on the digital euro in 2025, crossing a significant threshold in late October. Following the preparation phase that began in November 2023, the ECB’s Governing Council decided on October 29, 2025, to move the digital euro project to its next phase—building technical capacity ahead of a possible issuance decision.
Timeline and implementation
The ECB aims to be ready for a potential first issuance of the digital euro during 2029, contingent on EU co-legislators adopting the enabling Regulation during 2026. Pilot exercises and initial transactions could begin as early as mid-2027. The digital euro project will now focus on three main workstreams: advancing technical readiness, deepening market engagement, and supporting the legislative process.
Current achievements
Over the past two years of preparation work, the ECB has completed substantial groundwork, including rulebook development through its Rulebook Development Group involving over 50 experts from 30 organizations. Approximately 70 market participants have conducted technical tests through an innovation platform, exploring features such as conditional payments, encrypted e-receipts, voice-controlled transactions, and automated business-to-business payment flows.
Five tenders for the digital euro platform infrastructure are being finalized, with framework agreements expected by year-end 2025. These agreements commit no immediate financial resources but position the Eurosystem for rapid action if issuance is approved.
United Kingdom: Design phase continues through 2026
The Bank of England is progressing its digital pound exploration without having made a decision on whether to proceed with issuance. The central bank remains in its design phase, scheduled to conclude in 2026.
Recent progress
In January 2025, the Bank of England published a progress update and initial design note on the digital pound blueprint, with ongoing experimentation through the Digital Pound Lab, which launched in August 2025. The Lab represents a public-private model where the Bank provides infrastructure while private sector firms develop innovative applications and consumer experiences.
In October 2025, the Bank published several design notes addressing key technical and policy questions, including an analysis of offline payment capabilities and new interoperability models. The Bank demonstrated that offline CBDC payments are technically feasible after working with companies including Thales, Secretarium, and IDEMIA, though challenges remain regarding user experience, risk mitigation, and compliance.
Holding limits between £10,000 and £20,000 are under consideration, and privacy protections are proposed such that neither the Bank of England nor the Government could access personal transaction information.
China: E-CNY reaches trillion-dollar transaction scale
China’s e-CNY (digital yuan) remains the world’s largest and most advanced CBDC pilot, achieving unprecedented scale by 2025.
Adoption scale
By late 2024, the e-CNY had opened more than 325 million individual wallets and processed cumulative transactions reaching approximately 7.3 trillion yuan (over $1 trillion USD). Transaction volumes have expanded dramatically across the country, growing from an initial pilot in four cities in April 2020 to integration across 25+ major cities and regions by 2024.
Strategic expansion
The e-CNY has moved beyond retail payments to advanced applications including government welfare disbursements in rural areas, public services tax payments, and integration with smart contracts for targeted subsidies and time-bound consumption vouchers. The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics provided a significant stress test, offering e-CNY to foreign visitors for the first time.
Programmable features
Unlike passive digital money, the e-CNY enables precision fiscal targeting through conditional spending restrictions, time-limited validity, and automated transaction-triggered payments. This capability allows governments to direct subsidies to specific purposes or recipients with unprecedented targeting precision.
Cross-Border Development
Through Project mBridge, China continues advancing multi-currency CBDC settlement with the Bank of Thailand, Central Bank of the UAE, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and Saudi Central Bank. The platform could reduce cross-border payment costs by up to 50 percent by minimizing liquidity requirements and foreign exchange expenses.
Japan: Pilot Continues, No Issuance Decision
The Bank of Japan has maintained its CBDC pilot program since April 2023 but has made no commitment to launching a digital yen.
Pilot progress
The Bank released its latest progress report in May 2025, outlining technical evaluations not covered in earlier phases, conducted through system development and experimentation alongside a CBDC Forum involving private businesses discussing retail payment themes. The working group is examining integration of CBDCs with distributed ledger technology, considering potential future use of controlled Layer 2 blockchain solutions.
Current stance
Despite these ongoing research efforts, Bank of Japan Executive Director Kazushige Kamiyama stated in June 2025 that there are currently no plans to issue a CBDC. However, officials acknowledge that rapid digitalization is accelerating cashless payment adoption—reaching 42.8 percent in 2024, up from 13.2 percent in 2010. The Bank recognizes that “a CBDC may become a critical piece of infrastructure” shaping Japan’s future payment system, but no decision on implementation has been made.
Canada: Reduced focus on retail CBDC
The Bank of Canada has scaled back its retail CBDC exploration, shifting focus to broader payments system research and policy development.
Changed approach
In September 2024, the Bank concluded that “a CBDC might not be necessary at this time” given Canada’s high financial inclusion levels and availability of alternative payment methods. The Bank will continue monitoring global CBDC developments but is no longer pursuing an active retail CBDC design program.
Focus on real-time rail
Canada is prioritizing instead the Real-Time Rail (RTR), a real-time gross settlement system set to launch in Q3 2026, which the Bank views as providing similar benefits to a CBDC in terms of improving payment speed and efficiency.
Australia: Wholesale CBDC focus through Project Acacia
Australia has concluded that no retail CBDC is justified at present but is actively pursuing wholesale applications.
Project Acacia milestone
In July 2025, Project Acacia reached a significant milestone with 24 innovative use cases conditionally selected, including 19 pilot projects involving real money and asset transactions and 5 proof-of-concept exercises. These pilots test settlement of fixed income, private markets, trade receivables, and carbon credits using stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and pilot wholesale CBDC on multiple distributed ledger platforms.
Testing will unfold over six months with comprehensive results expected in the first half of 2026. The Reserve Bank is focusing on wholesale applications because advantages include counterparty risk mitigation, collateral liberation, enhanced transparency, and reduced costs.
Brazil: DREX (Digital Real) moving toward 2025 launch
Brazil is advancing its digital currency initiative, DREX, scheduled for launch in in early 2026, as a major transformation of the Brazilian monetary system.
Infrastructure and features
Unlike private cryptocurrencies, DREX is backed by the Brazilian real and issued by the Central Bank of Brazil. It represents infrastructure for financial innovation enabling smart contracts, new credit models, international payment integration, and financial inclusion. DREX is not a classic CBDC but rather a distributed-ledger-based infrastructure for tokenized bank deposits, loans, and government securities.
Strategic positioning
Brazil is positioning itself as a strategic player among emerging economies and BRICS nations, leveraging DREX as a bridge combining technological innovation with solid financial infrastructure. The platform builds on earlier successful digital innovation including Pix, Brazil’s instant payments system.
Benefits framework
Proposed advantages include reduced paper money costs through digitalization, enhanced financial system efficiency through instant settlements and smart contracts, financial inclusion for underserved populations, innovation fostering for fintech development, and international integration for bilateral and multilateral digital payment agreements.
India: E-Rupee pilot expanding, adoption challenges
India’s e-Rupee CBDC pilots have expanded across both wholesale and retail segments since their December 2022 launch, with approximately 5 million users across 16 participating banks as of 2025.
Pilot progress
India achieved its initial goal of one million daily e-Rupee transactions by the end of 2023 through government salary distributions. The retail e-Rupee (CBDC-R) circulation grew to INR2.34 billion in FY 2023-24 from INR57 million previously. Offline trials have been rolled out across 17 cities to ensure inclusive access in areas with limited connectivity.
Programmable applications
Pilots are testing programmable features including specific-purpose payments (such as tracking carbon credits or disbursing farmer loans) and cross-border trials with the UAE and Singapore to reduce friction in international transactions.
Adoption Challenges
Despite pilot successes, adoption remains low relative to expectations. The wholesale e-Rupee (CBDC-W) experienced a considerable drop in usage, declining to INR0.8 million in FY 2023-24 from INR109 million previously. The RBI has adopted a deliberate and phased approach, prioritizing thorough assessment before national launch.
Singapore and Switzerland: Wholesale-only approaches
Both jurisdictions have pursued wholesale CBDC projects rather than retail currencies for public use.
Singapore: Project Ubin and beyond
Singapore completed five phases of Project Ubin between 2016 and 2022, demonstrating successful multi-currency payment settlement through blockchain technology at lower risks and costs. The Monetary Authority of Singapore then transitioned to supporting industry-led platforms like Partior, a joint venture by DBS Bank, J.P. Morgan, and Temasek based on digitized commercial bank money rather than CBDCs.
Switzerland: Project Helvetia
The Swiss National Bank has been conducting Project Helvetia since December 2023, exclusively for wholesale CBDC use among financial institutions settling tokenized asset transactions on the SIX Digital Exchange platform. In June 2025, the SNB extended Project Helvetia until at least mid-2027 and expanded its scope. The project has facilitated digital bond issuances totaling CHF 750 million, with the World Bank issuing the first international CHF digital bond in May 2024. However, Project Helvetia’s extension does not constitute a commitment to permanent implementation—it remains experimental.
