---
title: "Would a digital currency drain bank deposits?"
description: "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?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/cbdc-and-bank-deposits
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/cbdc-and-bank-deposits.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "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."
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["finance", "banking", "monetary policy"]
keywords: ["central bank digital currency", "CBDC adoption", "bank deposits"]
---

# 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?

## 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.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| central bank digital currency | 6 | #306 | 4, 5, 1, 4, 1, 6, 1, 4, 2, 3, 3, 6, 2, 5, 3, 7, 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, 2, 4, 3, 0, 3, 5, 2, 6, 8, 5, 3, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5 | 132 |
| CBDC adoption | 0 | – | 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0 | 25 |
| bank deposits | 1 | #2881 | 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1 | 29 |

## 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

```bibtex
@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}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).