Ever wonder why you have not been hearing about the penny being dropped or a new dollar coin being introduced? Today it is all about Central Bank Digital Currencies These are digital versions of a country’s physical currency issued by central banks. They claim the role of these digital currencies is to support financial services for a nation’s government and its commercial-banking system. Still, it will replace much of the physical currency we use today. The premise of why this is being done deserves to be scrutinized.

In some ways, CBDCs are similar to cryptocurrencies, except their value is fixed by the central bank and equivalent to the country’s fiat currency. The Federal Reserve has developed a service named FedNow for depository institutions in the United States. FedNow is described as a service and suite of tools available to banks, credit unions, and other financial service companies. It will enable individuals and businesses to send and receive instant payments. It is also designed so that banks will be able to build products on top of the FedNow platform.