Browse research

We estimate the effect that owning Bitcoin has on the amount of cash held by Canadian consumers. Our results question the view that adopting certain new technologies, such as Bitcoin, leads to a decline in cash holdings.

Could Canadian banks continue to meet their regulatory liquidity requirements after the introduction of a cash-like retail central bank digital currency (CBDC)? We conduct a hypothetical exercise to estimate how a CBDC could affect bank liquidity by increasing the run-off rates of transactional retail deposits under four increasingly severe scenarios.

Chen et al. (2021) show that almost one-third of First Nations band offices in Canada are within 1 kilometre (km) of an automated banking machine (ABM) or financial institution (FI) branch and more than half are within 5 km.

In this paper, we examine trends in Canadian ownership of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from 2016 to 2020 using data from surveys conducted by the Bank of Canada.

Using data from the Bank Note Distribution System and consumer surveys, we find that bank notes in circulation remained high through 2021. Canadians continued to rely on electronic methods of payment, but a significant share also continued using cash for payments.

We construct and estimate a structural two-stage model of equilibrium in a market for payments in order to quantify the network externalities and identify the main determinants of consumer and merchant decisions.

We explore what drives transaction fees in the Bitcoin system and consider whether Bitcoin can remain tamper proof in the long run.

We consider introducing an expiry date for offline digital currency balances. Consumers whose digital cash expired would automatically receive the funds back into their online account. This functionality could increase demand for digital cash, with the time to expiry playing a key role.

How much of a CBDC would Canadian households want to hold, and what design features of a CBDC would they care about?

Should a CBDC be more like cash or bank deposits? An interest-bearing, cash-like CBDC not only makes payments more efficient but also increases total demand. This has positive effects on other transactions, inducing more deposit taking and lending and, thus, bank intermediation.