초록/요약

This paper deals with the current status of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in various countries, China, the US, and Europe, and its impact on financial markets. China has taken the major initiative to launch and operate CBDC to enhance its control over the financial market with an ambitious plan to compete against dollar currency. The US has changed its lukewarm posture against CBDC and takes a positive stance towards CBDC. EU has observed diverse attitudes toward CBDC among its member countries. There is a significant suspicion that the Chinese government will promote a CBDC to weaken the US dollar power as a key currency, which seems unreasonable because China wants to activate it only for domestic use. We will investigate how CBDC impacts the financial market (particularly on private banks) and how it influences central banks’ financial policies. Diverse effects on monetary policies are discussed. The positive effects include improving currency issuance and usage transparency, securing new monetary policy measures, forming a new interest rate system, and effects on currency stocks’ profits. The adverse effects include weakening the existing financial system, financial exclusion problems, and privacy issues. Even though the public sector has taken an initiative to launch and promote CBDCs, it does not necessarily try to replace the existent efforts of the private sector (e.g., bitcoin, etherium, Libra, etc.) because many stakeholders in this area announced the need for cooperation between the public and private sectors. This paper discusses how the Korean laws should change, particularly in the Bank of Korea Act, The Depositor Protection Act, Electronic Financial Transactions Act, and bank soundness regulation.