A central bank digital currency (CBDC) “is a digital payment instrument, denominated in the national unit of account, that is a direct liability of the central bank” (BIS, 2020). Over the last few years, interest in CBDC has grown to the point where at present 90 percent of central banks are investigating options for introducing CBDCs (BIS, 2021). As indicated in Broadbent’s remarks (in the epigraph), policymakers initially contemplated a CBDC that duplicated features of cash, without adding design characteristics that would make it more likely to compete with money issued by commercial banks – the so called disintermediation problem. However, more recently central banks have taken a broader view, and have been more open to the possibility that CBDCs can help them to fulfill their mandates, either in the present or the future. Central banks are increasingly viewing CBDCs as a way to improve the payment system, promote financial inclusion, enhance monetary policy transmission, and reduce systemic risk (BIS, 2020).The likelihood that a CBDC will achieve any of the desired central bank objectives depends upon its design features and how they interact. CBDCs can offer both pecuniary benefits, in the form of interest payments, and nonpecuniary benefits. These can include a host of features that enhance the performance of CBDC as a medium of exchange. Examples include the quality of the user interface, processing speed, privacy and access to markets We lump these possibilities together under the heading “payment convenience.”