Taiwan's Central Bank's CBDC report released: The digital New Taiwan Dollar will not accrue interest initially, will have wallet limits, and is inclined to establish a dedicated law for its regulation.

On the 15th, the Central Bank of Taiwan released the "Summary Report on External Communication Activities of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)," which summarizes the results of nine activities held throughout the year in the north, central and southern Taiwan in 2025. These activities included three public hearings, three forums, and three briefings, attracting a total of 1,714 attendees from 219 institutions.

The report clearly states that Taiwan's current payment system is convenient, and there is currently "no urgency" to issue a retail CBDC, or what some call a digital New Taiwan Dollar, but infrastructure development continues.

Digital payment platforms are now operational, facilitating widespread cash transactions.

Although the official issuance schedule for the retail CBDC is still undetermined, the Central Bank has already established and put into operation the "Digital Public Infrastructure Payment Platform" (hereinafter referred to as the Digital Payment Platform). Starting in August 2025, the platform will support the issuance of Hakka currency by the Hakka Affairs Council; in November of the same year, it will also cooperate in the general distribution of NT$10,000 in cash. The Central Bank stated that the platform has the actual carrying capacity.

The future retail CBDC architecture is also expected to adopt a two-tier structure, with the central bank reaching end users through intermediaries (banks or electronic payment institutions), initially without interest. Regarding the upper limits for wallet tiers, the limit is NT$100,000 for registered personal wallets, NT$5 million for corporate wallets, and NT$30,000 for unregistered wallets.

Regarding privacy protection mechanisms, the central bank can only access de-identified data, while personal data is stored at the intermediary institution, and the responsibility for KYC/AML is also borne by the intermediary institution.

Wholesale CBDC: Completed corporate bond DvP trial, locked in RWA liquidation positioning.

The progress of wholesale CBDCs is more concrete. In 2024, the People's Bank of China and the Financial Information Company established a "Tokenized Financial Flow Pilot Platform"; in 2025, it further cooperated with the China Depository & Clearing Corporation to complete the DvP (Delivery vs. Payment) test of corporate bond tokens, with the underlying technology adopting distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the platform using Hyperledger Besu.

The Central Bank of Taiwan has positioned its wholesale CBDC as the "ultimate clearing tool for the tokenized world" and explicitly supports the development of Real Asset Tokenization (RWA). As the global RWA narrative heats up, the next move by the Central Bank of Taiwan is worth watching.

CBDC, Stablecoins, and Deposit Tokens: A Clarification of Their Positions

The report also addresses common confusion by clearly distinguishing three types of digital currency:

CBDC is a central bank liability, fully prepared for issuance, and carries no credit or liquidity risk.

Deposit tokens are bank liabilities and are therefore more secure than stablecoins.

Stablecoins are issued by non-bank institutions and are mainly used in the virtual asset market. Countries are strengthening their regulation of them, with the U.S. GENIUS Act being a representative legislative trend.

Special legislation will set the direction; the current Central Bank Law is insufficient to cover all aspects.

Regarding the legal framework, the central bank has made it clear that the current Central Bank Law is insufficient to cover the relevant regulations for digital CBDCs, and it prefers to formulate a dedicated CBDC law rather than merely revising existing legal provisions. The report emphasizes that CBDCs are legal tender, and merchants, in principle, cannot refuse to accept them.

From a technical perspective, the retail CBDC adopts a centralized system design to meet the demands of high TPS (transactions per second); the payment specifications integrate the existing TWQR standard, eliminating the need for merchants to purchase new hardware. The central bank has also tested offline payment scenarios, covering three modes: mobile-to-mobile, mobile-to-card, and card-to-card. Programmable functions are open for intermediary institutions to develop their own applications, such as automatic deductions and digital vouchers.