Offline central bank digital currency
(Offline CBDC).
A CBDC is a digital currency issued and administered by a central bank.
An offline CBDC would be an offline version of a CBDC.
"Offline CBDC would be an innovative feature with potential to support different policy goals, such as resilience or financial inclusion. Whilst [it] might be technically feasible to implement an offline payment functionality for a digital pound, there are security, performance, and user experience challenges which need to be explored further.
"One key area is the security challenges related to double spending and counterfeiting. Heavy reliance on secure elements meant that if the secure elements were breached, double spending and counterfeiting might occur.
"Secure elements are commonly used in payments today, but they are, in most cases, paired with immediate online authentication, thus limiting losses. In contrast, the online layer in an offline payment (online reconciliation) occurs only after the transaction has taken place and losses have already been incurred."
(Source - ACT blog - June 2025.)
See also
- Bank of England
- Blockchain
- Britcoin
- Central bank
- Central bank digital currency (CBDC)
- Counterfeit
- Financial inclusion
- Offline
- Online
- Reconciliation
- Retail central bank digital currency (rCBDC)
- Security
