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SeedPublished 2026-10-23

Would a digital currency drain bank deposits?

Central bank digital currencies appear on 56 recent papers in the finance and economics journals, but only 14 of them carry a deposit, bank-lending, bank-run or financial-stability keyword. Pilots now run in China, Europe and elsewhere. If people can hold central bank money directly, how much would leave banks, and when?

financebankingmonetary policy

What prompted this#

Since October 2025, 56 papers carry a central-bank-digital-currency keyword (46 in finance journals); "CBDC adoption" appears on 11. Only 14 of the 56 also carry a deposit, disintermediation, bank-lending, bank-run or financial-stability keyword. "Bank deposits" appears on 8 papers.

Questions#

  • In the pilots in China, Nigeria and the Bahamas, did adopters move balances out of bank deposits, and did banks respond with higher deposit rates?
  • Would holding limits and no interest, as the digital euro design proposes, keep deposits in place during a bank stress?
  • How does a digital currency compare with stablecoins and money market funds as a drain on deposits?

Data that could help#

Pilot usage statistics published by central banks, bank-level deposit data, and survey evidence on who adopted the digital currency and why.

Next step#

Compare deposit growth at banks in pilot cities with banks elsewhere during China's e-CNY roll-out.

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
central bank digital currency6#306132
CBDC adoption0–25
bank deposits1#288129

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/cbdc-and-bank-deposits.md

← Can plain-language central bank messages reach households? · The carbon border adjustment and the exporters it hits →

Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Would a digital currency drain bank deposits?. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/cbdc-and-bank-deposits

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-cbdc-and-bank-deposits,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Would a digital currency drain bank deposits?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/cbdc-and-bank-deposits}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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