Spain is currently in the pilot phase. It has three different pilot projects exploring the use of wholesale CBDCs.

CBDC History and Development

After soliciting proposals in a 2022 report, Banco de España received 24 proposals for possible wholesale CBDC designs. In March of 2023, Banco de España announced that it would soon move forward with four of the proposed designs. However, Banco de España stressed that these projects are separate from anything taking place with the European Central Bank.

In 2024, Banco de España announced three wholesale CBDC pilot projects. The first pilot is testing the use of wholesale CBDCs for securities settlement. The pilot involves a consortium including the banks Cecabank and Abanka. The second pilot is being led by the company Adhara to test the use of multiple wholesale CBDCs for cross-border transactions. The third pilot is led by the company Minsait to test the use of a wholesale CBDC for settling the issuance and secondary transactions of digital bonds over a period of five months.

Human Rights and Civil Liberties Concerns

Spain earned a 90 out of 100 in Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World Report. Furthermore, 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 Spain would be provided by the European Central Bank—representing the European Union. Still, there are concerns present in Spain. Regarding the issuance and use of a CBDC, the most relevant concern is the use of sweeping surveillance.

Citizen Lab, a research group focused on high-tech human rights abuses, published a report in 2022 alleging the “government used Pegasus software to target as many as 65 cellphones belonging to Catalan independence leaders between 2017 and 2020.” Targets included sitting and former presidents of the Catalan regional government, members of the European Parliament, Catalan jurists, activists, and other politicians. The U.S. Department of State reported that the “court found the Spanish National Police compiled files on the judges and magistrates” and that “the files, which had been leaked to the press, had not been compiled in accordance with any law.” Unfortunately, a CBDC could be used to greatly expand surveillance by putting financial records on government databases by default.

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.