User needs and adoption

CBDC adoption will be driven by its usefulness to consumers and acceptance by merchants hence, strategies for adoption must consider both and be tailored to the diverse payment landscapes. A forward-looking approach is required to assess the consumer & merchant needs, taking in account present as well as future of payments. Following are the three key factors to consider:

1. Compatibility with current infrastructures: A near-instant adoption by merchants can be expected if CBDC payments are enabled through existing accounting and Point of Sale systems.
2. Fulfilment of unmet needs to encourage higher usability: CBDCs should support the unmet consumer and merchant requirements that current payment methods might not provide.
3. Achieving network effects: The interdependence of adoption by consumers and merchants might slow down the adoption of CBDCs. Central banks might consider taking the one-sided market approach, incentivise consumers on peer-to-peer transactions to facilitate adoption. This might encourage more merchants to start accepting CBDCs. Interoperability will play an important role in achieving the desired network effects.

Currency Network can accommodate the core features of any CBDC instrument and the underlying system by providing quick onboarding, ease of use, convertibility, continuous availability, high security, resilience, and instant settlement between the related parties.

1.    Merchant Acceptance:

A quick merchant onboarding and compatibility with different payment methods will drive acceptance and foster trust amongst the merchants to make a shift to CBDCs. Currency Network enables merchant onboarding and KYC in 30 minutes ensuring that merchant account once created is verified instantly and is ready for accepting and making payments. Currency Network supports payments from multiple methods like BACS, SEPA, ACH. Our ready APIs can be integrated with the merchant’s current Point of Sale which will give confidence to the merchants and help in moving towards CBDCs.

Currency Network is also ready to support businesses on the eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify and Magento. It takes just a couple of minutes for a merchant to install the Currency Network plugin, set up the account and start accepting payments using CBDCs.

2.    Customer Orientation:

Our aim is to help the Central Banks with smooth adoption of CBDCs such that customers hardly notice any difference from the ways they transact money between peers and businesses today. Currency Network offers options to the customers where they can continue making payments like they do at present. Currency Network supports physical cards and digital app-wallet based payments at the PoS making it easy for mass adoption.

Customers can

• Scan the QR code presented by the merchant by using their app wallet.
• Present their unique QR code and allow the merchant to scan it using the barcode scanner.
• Use Apple Pay/ Google Pay to scan the code or use their UPI ID to make payment at the merchants.