Portugal CBDC Tracker

Portugal is currently in the research phase. The Banco de Portugal has largely deferred to the European Central Bank’s work on the digital euro. However, the Banco de Portugal has been following these developments over the years and contributing its own research.

Note: This page is dedicated to the work done by the Portuguese government. However, Portugal is a member of the European Union and Eurozone. If the European Central Bank launches a CBDC (referred to as a digital euro), then this page will be changed to reflect that. Until then, the Eurozone page has notes about the development of the digital euro.

CBDC History and Development

In 2021, the Banco de Portugal posted a brief outline explaining different forms of digital currency. The outline was based on an article published that same year by the central bank in an economic bulletin. The article largely served as a primer to break down the differences between cryptocurrency and CBDC at length. Later in 2021, Banco de Portugal board member Hélder Rosalin delivered a presentation that offered a similar primer.

The Banco de Portugal’s 2021-2025 strategic plan briefly listed assessing “the implications for the Eurosystem of issuing a central bank digital currency and to engage in designing and implementing it” as a strategic guideline for ensuring financial system robustness.

In the Banco de Portugal’s 2022 annual report on cooperation, the central bank mentioned discussions on CBDCs that had taken place throughout the year. For example, former Banco de Portugal governor Vítor Constâncio compared CBDCs and cryptocurrencies in his keynote at the XXXII Lisbon Meeting in October 2022.

The Banco de Portugal created the “Digital Euro Market Advisory Group” in February 2022 and held its first meeting in April 2022. The group was formed to discuss the design of a potential CBDC in the Eurozone and “the opportunities that the introduction of the digital euro could bring.” The group included members from companies like Accenture, Via, RealFevr, Mastercard, Crypto Shop, and more. The group held seven meetings between April 2022 and February 2024.

Human Rights and Civil Liberties Concerns

Portugal earned a 96 out of 100 in Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World report. As Freedom House noted in the report, one of the only issues for Portugal is corruption. The issuance or adoption of a CBDC in Portugal could worsen this issue. However, it must be said that the ability of the government to abuse a CBDC directly is debatable because the CBDC that would be used in Portugal would be provided by the European Central Bank—representing the European Union.

“The country has struggled in recent years with major corruption scandals involving high-ranking politicians, officials, and businesspeople, though many such individuals have been duly prosecuted,” according to Freedom House. The existence of pervasive corruption is a major concern with CBDCs because it calls into question any promises that might be made by the government to limit surveillance, control, or other risks of CBDCs. Furthermore, the existence of corruption calls into question whether CBDC policies might be designed to exert political favoritism through subsidies, price controls, or other targeted restrictions.

For additional information on concerns regarding violations of human rights and civil liberties, see the following reports by Amnesty International, Financial Tyranny Index, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, and the U.S. Department of State. For additional information on concerns regarding the risks of CBDCs, see the following webpage and report by the Cato Institute: The Risks of CBDCs and Central Bank Digital Currency: Assessing the Risks and Dispelling the Myths.

For additional information regarding metrics, the methodology page explains each of the data points and provides their respective sources.