Serbia CBDC Tracker

Serbia is currently in the research phase. National Bank of Serbia governor Jorgovanka Tabaković said that Serbia has been analyzing CBDCs. The central bank’s interest has mostly been related to how a CBDC could be used for cross-border payments.

CBDC History and Development

In June 2023, National Bank of Serbia governor Jorgovanka Tabaković delivered a speech at the SEE Fintech Forum in Belgrade. He said, “Around the world, the benefits and risks of introducing CBDC are being analysed, which we are doing, and in a smaller number of countries pioneering attempts to introduce CBDC on a limited scale have been undertaken.” He added that for Serbia, “the potential of CBDCs is mostly considered to be their use for the needs of cross-border payments, where there is a lot of room for improvement at the global level.”

Human Rights and Civil Liberties Concerns

Serbia earned a 57 out of 100 in Freedom House’s 2024 Freedom in the World report. As noted in the report, oppression, surveillance, and corruption are issues in Serbia. The issuance or adoption of a CBDC in Serbia could worsen these issues.

Freedom House reported that “Independent investigative groups have been increasingly subjected to harassment, intimidation, and violence by authorities and progovernment groups.” Unfortunately, a CBDC could be used as another tool in this effort. Across the world, governments have often turned to freezing and seizing the money of activists, political rivals, and protestors to undermine the opposition. A CBDC would make such initiatives easier by allowing governments to take direct control of each citizen’s finances.

“Critics of the government who have documented endemic corruption were targeted with military-grade spyware, according to reports that emerged in 2023,” according to Freedom House. Unfortunately, a CBDC could be used to greatly expand surveillance by putting financial records on government databases by default.

According to Freedom House, “Critics have credibly accused Vučić and the SNS government of having ties to organized crime, and cronyism—in the form of jobs provided to allies of the president and the ruling party—is reportedly common.” 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.