Taiwan's Central Bank on Stablecoins, Deposit Tokens and CBDC: Layers Can Coexist, No Urgency Yet for Retail CBDC

On September 17, 2026, the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) used the materials from its post-meeting press conference to explain the differences among stablecoins, deposit tokens and central bank digital currency (CBDC), saying the three can coexist and complement each other across different layers. It said that because Taiwan's payment environment is already diverse and convenient, there is no urgency to issue a retail CBDC, and that for now it is starting with a test project to support payments for digital vouchers. This is a written question-and-answer that the Central Bank itself prepared after the joint meeting of its Board of Directors and Supervisors, not a resolution of that board. What matters for readers in Taiwan: a retail CBDC is simply digital cash for the public's everyday transactions, and these materials give no timetable for issuing one in Taiwan; a stablecoin can be held or traded through a wallet, while a deposit token requires opening an account at a commercial bank first.

This article was checked on September 26, 2026, drawing on two sets of written materials from that Central Bank press conference and on the FSC's press release of September 22. The Central Bank's press-conference materials use the words "trial," "pilot" and "test project"; the FSC's press release uses "pilot programme." These are two agencies' own separate word choices, and this article follows each one's original wording rather than mixing them.

What This Document Is: A Written Q&A From the Press Conference, Not a Board Resolution

On September 17, the Central Bank held a press conference after the joint meeting of its Board of Directors and Supervisors. The written materials it released were the post-meeting press briefing and Topics of Public Interest, plus separate Reference Materials for the press conference. The explanation of stablecoins, deposit tokens and CBDC sits in Question 7 of Topics of Public Interest and in Section 7 of the Reference Materials, both titled "Issues Related to the Development Trends of Central Bank Money in the Digital Era."

The four questions and answers under Question 7 are a written statement the Central Bank drafted and answered itself, not a record of questions reporters actually asked. The Central Bank has addressed this topic before: a footnote in the Reference Materials notes that its press-conference materials of June 19, 2025 discussed the roles played by deposit tokens, stablecoins and CBDC, and that its materials of September 18, 2025 also discussed issues related to New Taiwan dollar stablecoins.

Where the Three Differ: Issuer, Value Backing, Use Cases, Access and Regulation

The table the Central Bank compiled compares the three on four dimensions: issuer and value backing, use cases, access and circulation, and the regulatory framework. Start with who issues each and what backs its value: a stablecoin is mostly issued by a non-bank institution and is a liability of its issuer, who must hold fiat-currency assets equal in full to back its value; a deposit token is a tokenized bank deposit issued by a commercial bank and is a liability of that bank; CBDC is digital currency issued by the Central Bank and is a direct liability of the Central Bank, which, in Taiwan's case, must hold reserves equal in full to what it issues.

Next, access and circulation. A stablecoin can be held or traded through a wallet, allows peer-to-peer payment, and runs on a permissionless public blockchain, making it a bearer instrument. A deposit token's holder must first complete a commercial bank's KYC process and open an account before using it, and it can, in principle, only move between that bank's own customers; it generally runs on a permissioned private blockchain, and banks use tokenized Central Bank reserves (such as wholesale CBDC) as the settlement asset so that deposit tokens at different banks can move across banks at face value.

Retail and wholesale CBDC are also accessed differently: a retail CBDC would have its wallet provided by the Central Bank or by an intermediary such as a bank, while a wholesale CBDC is mainly provided to financial institutions that hold a reserve account at the Central Bank, as a settlement asset. On the regulatory framework, the Central Bank's compilation of how other countries handle this says: a stablecoin is mostly brought under revised payment rules or a dedicated statute; a deposit token can fall under existing bank-deposit rules; issuing a retail CBDC would, in most cases, require revising existing law or enacting a dedicated statute, while a wholesale CBDC could fall under existing Central Bank reserve rules — this is the Central Bank's summary of practice abroad, not a provision of Taiwan's current law.

Why the Central Bank Says They Can Coexist in Layers

The Central Bank takes the view that retail CBDC competes with stablecoins and deposit tokens on payment functions, but that a retail CBDC could help prevent monopoly in the private payments market, could support lower-margin payment needs (for example, hospitals and clinics), and could serve as a shared piece of infrastructure that lets private-sector firms compete fairly and innovate on top of it. That is the first reason the Central Bank gives for why the three can coexist and complement one another.

The second reason sits on the wholesale side: the Central Bank believes that wholesale CBDC, as a tokenized settlement tool that works across systems and platforms, could promote interoperability among different deposit tokens or stablecoins and help avoid fragmentation that would otherwise arise from insufficient interoperability between platforms. In other words, wholesale CBDC plays the role of a settlement layer underneath, letting different banks and different deposit tokens connect with one another.

Put the two reasons together and that is what "layers" means here: a stablecoin, mostly issued by non-bank institutions, is used for on-chain crypto-asset trading and cross-border payment; a deposit token, issued by a commercial bank, can be used by businesses for liquidity management or cross-border payment; a retail CBDC is digital cash issued by the Central Bank for the public's everyday transactions; and a wholesale CBDC is a settlement asset among financial institutions. The Central Bank's own word is that they "can" coexist and complement each other — a possibility in the Central Bank's view, not something already decided.

Taiwan's Progress: No Rush on Retail, Wholesale Trials Continue

In the Reference Materials, the Central Bank sets out Taiwan's own progress: because the payment environment here is already diverse and convenient, there is no urgency to issue a retail CBDC, and for now it is starting with a test project supporting digital-voucher payments; on the wholesale side, it continues research and trials on tokenized reserves. In 2024 the Central Bank repurposed its earlier, already-trialed "CBDC Prototype Platform" into a "Digital Public Infrastructure Payment Platform," integrating it with the retail payment system, with a test project to support government agencies disbursing digital vouchers or subsidies.

In August and November 2025, this payment platform helped process the Hakka Affairs Council's "Hakka Coin 1.0" and the Executive Yuan's NT$10,000 universal cash payout, respectively; in 2026 it helped the Hakka Affairs Council run "Hakka Coin 2.0," and it has worked with other ministries too, for instance helping the Ministry of Health and Welfare disburse its "Health Coin" and handle the related payment processing. The verb the Central Bank uses is "helped": the platform for disbursing digital vouchers themselves belongs to the Ministry of Digital Affairs, while this payment platform handles the payment processing that the vouchers involve; neither of the Central Bank's two documents says that what people receive is CBDC.

On the wholesale side, the Central Bank worked with the Financial Information Service Co. (FISC) and the Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation in 2025 to trial the feasibility of jointly building tokenized financial infrastructure; in 2026 it is running two trials: one, with FISC and 12 banks, forms a "Financial Alliance Chain" that puts gold passbook business on-chain and runs it with gold tokens; the other has the Financial Alliance Chain plan to work with an "RWA Token Platform" to trial a plan for integrating asset tokens, bank deposit tokens and interbank settlement tokens for collaboration on the same platform. The Central Bank says it will keep running tokenization trials together with the FSC, banks, FISC and others, to make sure that the Central Bank still provides the ultimate settlement tool and the basis of trust for the tokenized financial system of the future.

As for a New Taiwan dollar stablecoin, the Central Bank's judgment is that the New Taiwan dollar is not an international currency, so cross-border payment applications should still rely mainly on US dollar stablecoins; on top of that, Taiwan's payment system is already diverse and convenient, so a New Taiwan dollar stablecoin has limited incentive as a domestic payment tool — this is the Central Bank's own judgment, not a prohibition or a rule. Five days later, on September 22, the FSC separately issued a press release opening applications for banks to run a deposit-token pilot programme: when a bank issues a deposit token, it is presenting a bank deposit in a new form such as on a blockchain, its legal nature remains a bank deposit, and the related business is, in principle, handled under the existing Banking Act and related rules. None of these documents from the Central Bank and the FSC states that the two are part of the same policy or that one caused the other.

The International Picture, as the Central Bank Compiles It, and How to Check It Yourself

On the international picture, the Central Bank states in the materials themselves that its source is "the websites of central banks in various countries, the Atlantic Council and international media reports; compiled by this Bank." According to the Central Bank's own compilation, aside from the United States, which clearly halted its push for a CBDC once Trump began his second term, most major economies, together with Taiwan, continue related research or trials; the euro area is actively advancing a retail CBDC, and mainland China's domestic digital yuan has now been repositioned as a digital deposit currency.

The Central Bank's compilation notes that the euro area's timetable is conditional: if the relevant EU legislative process is completed successfully by the end of 2026, the European Central Bank (ECB) plans to launch a one-year pilot in the second half of 2027, with the digital euro hoped to formally launch in 2029; "if" marks a condition and "hoped" marks an expectation, neither being a settled timetable. On mainland China, the Central Bank's compilation says the People's Bank of China repositioned the digital yuan as a digital deposit currency in early 2026, citing reasons that include Alipay and WeChat Pay already being deeply embedded in daily life, the public lacking motivation to use it, and weak incentives for commercial banks to promote it.

Readers who want to see the original text themselves can find the September 17 and September 22 items on the press-release lists of the Central Bank (cbc.gov.tw) and the FSC (fsc.gov.tw); the status of other countries is the Central Bank's own compilation, and confirming it means going back to each country's own official sources.

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