Why Issue a Central Bank Digital Currency? The balance of benefits and costs surely needs further study—but central banks might consider introducing CBDCs for various reasons. Efficiency considerations provide a first reason. Efficiency arguments for CBDCs are based on countering the monopoly power that strong network externalities might confer on one or a few private operators in the payments system or private virtual currencies, or on the inability to ensure the full stability and safety of privately coded and maintained currencies. In addition, a CBDC could overcome the coordination failure involved in any inability to agree on a single new technological standard for electronic payments. In terms of stability, a DLT-based CBDC could also be more secure and resilient than current settlement systems which are exposed to single point of failure risk

http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2017/11/01/sp103017-fintech-and-cross-border-payments