Studies from University of Sussex Add New Findings in the Area of Environment and Planning (The Political Economy of Institutionalizing Central Bank Digital Currencies: Disruption, Disintermediation, and Incumbency Within the Bahamas’ Sand …): Global Views – Environment and Planning

2026 JUN 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Economics Daily Report -- New research on Global Views - Environment and Planning is the subject of a report. According to news reporting out of East Sussex, United Kingdom, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “While Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) have primarily been developed in Global South contexts to enhance ‘financial inclusion’, a key debate within the literature centers on whether the existence of a new form of state issued digital money presents a ‘threat’ to incumbent finance actors. Indeed, while monetary reformers see CBDCs as offering the potential to rebalance power away from the private banking sector and toward the state, commercial banks, on the other hand, see them as a potential new source of economic competition.”

Financial support for this research came from British Academy.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Sussex, “Moving beyond this ‘zero-sum’ framing, this article develops a framework for examining how CBDCs’ disruptiveness may be contingent on an interplay of institutional design choices, context-specific geographies, and the responses of a range of actors. It applies this framework to an analysis of two pilot CBDC schemes: the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar and The Eastern Caribbean Currency Union’s (ECCU) DCash. Overall, it finds that these two CBDCs are proving less disruptive than anticipated. This is because the CBDC pilots’ ‘intermediated’ models mean that financial incumbents are emerging as central players in, and beneficiaries of, the new CBDC ecosystems. Secondly, Caribbean banking systems remain cash-heavy, meaning that CBDC use is displacing cash and coins, rather than banks’ deposits, shielding banks from disintermediation losses. Thirdly, incumbent actors have found subtle ways of undermining the CBDC rollouts, ultimately slowing down user sign-up and thus protecting the status quo.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Overall, the findings highlight how CBDCs in the Caribbean appear to be reconfiguring, rather than challenging, the prevailing political economies of money.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: The Political Economy of Institutionalizing Central Bank Digital Currencies: Disruption, Disintermediation, and Incumbency Within the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar and the Eastern Caribbean’s Dcash. Environment and Planning A-economy and Space, 2026. Environment and Planning A-economy and Space can be contacted at: Sage Publications Inc, 2455 Teller Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Andrew Hook, University of Sussex, Dept. of Geography, Falmer BN1 9SL, East Sussex, United Kingdom.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X261449498. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)