CBDC Technology Providers 2026: Who Builds Digital Money

In a district treasury office in Odisha, an officer reviewing a welfare scheme can now ask a question that cash never allowed: could this subsidy be issued as digital rupees that only work at approved fertiliser dealers? The Reserve Bank of India has run pilots doing exactly that. But the code that makes such a rupee programmable, the ledger that records it and the wallet that holds it were not all written inside the central bank. Behind almost every central bank digital currency sits a small group of technology vendors, and choosing among them is one of the least discussed decisions in modern monetary policy.

How many countries are building a CBDC in 2026?

As of May 2026, 146 countries and currency unions representing more than 98% of global GDP are exploring a central bank digital currency, according to the Atlantic Council's tracker. Of those, a record 77 are in development, pilot or launch, the tracker counts 41 pilot projects, and only three countries have fully launched: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria.

The gap between 146 and 3 is the market that vendors are chasing. Most central banks do not have large in-house engineering teams, and almost none want to run a consumer payments business. They need someone to supply the core ledger, the issuance and redemption tools, the interfaces for commercial banks, and often the wallets and offline hardware too. The Atlantic Council tracker shows how uneven progress is, and our own CBDC tracker follows country-level changes.

What does a CBDC technology provider actually supply?

A CBDC technology provider supplies some or all of four layers: a core ledger where the central bank mints and destroys currency, a distribution layer for commercial banks and payment firms, end-user wallets and merchant tools, and specialised features such as offline payments or programmability. In 2026 few central banks buy all four from one vendor.

Ripple's description of its own platform is a useful map of the layers: an issuer module for minting, redemption and destruction; an operator module for banks distributing the currency; end-user wallets; and the ledger itself, with the controls central banks require. Bitt's work with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank followed the same pattern, supplying a central bank system, a financial institution system, a merchant app and a free wallet.

The architectural choices behind those layers matter more than the brand on the contract:

• Token or account. In a token model the digital note itself carries value, like cash. India's retail e-rupee is described as a digital token representing legal tender, issued in the same denominations as notes. In an account model, balances sit in ledger accounts tied to identities.
• One tier or two. In a two-tier model the central bank issues and commercial banks distribute and handle customers. India's pilot distributes through banks; almost every retail CBDC under development uses this structure.
• Retail or wholesale. Retail CBDCs reach the public. Wholesale CBDCs settle between banks and are the focus of BIS projects such as Agora. Our wholesale CBDC explainer covers the second.
• Online or offline. Offline payment capability, where two devices transfer value without a network, is a major differentiator for inclusion-focused countries.

Who are the main CBDC technology providers?

The CBDC technology providers with verified central bank work as of 2026 include Giesecke+Devrient, Bitt, Soramitsu, R3, Consensys and Ripple for retail and pilot projects, and Fnality and BIS-led consortia for wholesale settlement. Each has a distinct technical approach and a different track record of moving from proof of concept to live use.

GDGiesecke+Devrient (Filia)

The German banknote and security printer sells a CBDC product called Filia, designed around offline payments that can be made consecutively without a network. The Bank of Ghana signed with G+D to pilot the e-Cedi, a general-purpose retail CBDC, in three phases covering design, implementation and field testing through mobile apps and smart cards, as The Fintech Times reported. The aim includes payments without a bank account or smartphone.

BIBitt

Barbados-based Bitt is the only vendor on this list behind two currencies the public actually used. It built DCash for the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, launched on 31 March 2021 as the first retail CBDC issued within a currency union, per the ECCB's announcement. In August 2021 the Central Bank of Nigeria chose Bitt as technical partner for the eNaira, citing competence, security, interoperability and implementation experience, TheCable reported. Nigeria is one of the Atlantic Council's three launched CBDCs, though public use has stayed thin: in June 2026 the central bank's Payments System Vision 2028 acknowledged slow adoption and set out to reposition the eNaira around government-to-person and cross-border payments, Central Banking reported. DCash had a harder ending. Its pilot concluded in January 2024, and in February 2026 the ECCB suspended work on DCash 2.0 to prioritise a regional fast payment system, MNI reported.

Soramitsu

The Japanese firm built Cambodia's Bakong system on Hyperledger Iroha, live since 2020. Soramitsu reports more than 30 million wallets in a country of about 17 million people, and 608 million transactions worth over $150 billion in 2024, according to its September 2025 release. Its own material classes Bakong as closer to tokenised deposits than a pure CBDC. It has also run proofs of concept in Laos, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

R3 (Corda)

R3's permissioned Corda platform has been used in several central bank experiments, including the Bank of Thailand's Inthanon project from 2018. In April 2023 the Central Bank of the UAE named R3 as technology provider and G42 Cloud as infrastructure provider for its CBDC strategy, with Clifford Chance on legal oversight, according to Crowdfund Insider. The plan included a CBDC bridge proof of concept with India.

COConsensys

Consensys brings enterprise Ethereum technology to central bank pilots. In 2020 it was selected by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand for phase two of their joint Inthanon-LionRock cross-border project, working with PwC.

Ripple

Ripple markets a CBDC platform based on XRP Ledger technology. In 2023 it said it was in talks with more than 20 countries and named work with Palau on a national digital currency and with the Central Bank of Montenegro on a pilot and strategy. Neither has become a launched retail CBDC.

FNFnality (wholesale)

Fnality, owned by a consortium of global banks, launched its sterling Fnality Payment System in December 2023, letting banks settle in digital tokens backed one for one by funds at the Bank of England. It raised a $136 million Series C in September 2025 led by investors including WisdomTree, Bank of America and Citi, per The Block.

BIS Innovation Hub projects

mBridge connected the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE for cross-border wholesale CBDC payments; the BIS withdrew in late 2024, saying the project had graduated. Project Agora, also BIS-led, brings together the New York Fed, central banks from Europe, Korea, Mexico and Japan, and more than 40 commercial banks. User testing began around January 2026 and was expected to run about six months, Reuters reported via Malay Mail. Our mBridge explainer has the detail.

How do CBDC providers compare?

The table summarises each provider's verified central bank work as of October 2026. It is limited to partnerships confirmed by a central bank, the company or a reliable news report. Many vendors claim further confidential engagements; we have left those out.

Provider	Focus	Verified central bank work	Stage reached
BIBitt	Retail CBDC stack	ECCB DCash (2021), CBN eNaira (2021)	Live (eNaira); DCash pilot ended 2024
Soramitsu	Iroha-based ledger	Cambodia Bakong (2020); Laos, Solomon Islands, PNG PoCs	Live (Bakong)
GDGiesecke+Devrient	Retail, offline	Bank of Ghana e-Cedi pilot	Pilot
R3	Permissioned DLT	CBUAE CBDC strategy (2023); Bank of Thailand Inthanon (2018)	Strategy, PoC
COConsensys	Enterprise Ethereum	HKMA and Bank of Thailand Inthanon-LionRock (2020)	PoC
Ripple	XRPL-based platform	Palau, Central Bank of Montenegro (2023)	Pilot, strategy
FNFnality	Wholesale settlement	Sterling system backed at Bank of England (Dec 2023)	Live (wholesale)
BIBIS Innovation Hub	Multi-CBDC, tokenisation	mBridge (to 2024), Agora (testing 2026)	MVP, testing

How does a central bank choose a CBDC platform?

Central banks typically choose a CBDC platform through a staged process: research, a request for information, proofs of concept with several vendors, a competitive selection for a pilot, then a decision on issuance. In 2021 Nigeria's central bank said it chose Bitt for technological competence, efficiency, security, interoperability and implementation experience, a list most central banks would recognise.

In practice, five questions dominate:

1. Sovereignty and control. Can the central bank run, audit and if necessary replace the system? The ECCB's governor framed it bluntly: "we will not outsource our development." Vendors that hand over source code and operational control score higher.
2. Resilience and offline capability. A national payment system must keep working in outages and in areas with weak connectivity, which is why G+D leads with offline payments.
3. Interoperability. The CBDC must connect to existing real-time systems such as India's UPI, which handles about 802 million payments a day as of September 2026, and to other central banks for cross-border use.
4. Privacy and compliance. Designs must satisfy anti-money-laundering rules while protecting user data, a debate covered in our CBDC privacy explainer.
5. Proven delivery. Very few vendors have moved a CBDC from pilot to public use. Bitt and Soramitsu are the main exceptions on retail.

Building a CBDC ledger is the easy part; getting a population to want it is not.

Which technology runs India's digital rupee?

India's digital rupee is issued by the Reserve Bank of India and distributed through commercial banks in a two-tier, token-based model. The retail pilot began on 1 December 2022 with SBI, ICICI Bank, YES Bank and IDFC First Bank, followed by Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, according to Business Standard.

The RBI has not published a single named vendor for the core platform, and we have not found a verified one. What it has published is direction. Its 2025-26 annual report, summarised by Outlook Money, describes programmable pilots under central and state direct benefit transfer schemes, a memorandum of understanding with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and talks with MAS and the Central Bank of the UAE on a cross-border CBDC pilot. Our guide to the digital rupee explains how this works for users.

A worked example: what adoption looks like in numbers

Compare two systems built for different purposes. India's retail e-rupee in circulation fell from Rs 1,016.46 crore on 31 March 2025 to Rs 771.66 crore on 31 March 2026. The change is Rs 244.80 crore, and 244.80 divided by 1,016.46 is a decline of about 24% in a year.

Cambodia's Bakong, by Soramitsu's figures, processed 608 million transactions worth over $150 billion in 2024. Dividing $150 billion by 608 million gives an average transaction of roughly $247, and 30 million wallets for 17 million people works out to about 1.8 wallets per person. The comparison is imperfect, because Bakong functions as a fast payment system with tokenised deposits and the e-rupee competes with UPI. That is the point: a technically sound CBDC that duplicates an excellent existing rail struggles for users, as our e-rupee vs UPI analysis argues.

What should governments and vendors watch next?

The next twelve months will test whether CBDC vendors can move from pilots to production. Key dates include the RBI's financial year 2026-27 plans for wider pilots and cross-border tests, Agora's report to decision makers after its 2026 testing phase, and decisions in large economies that could create the biggest contracts yet.

• RBI pilots through March 2027. The RBI plans to expand direct benefit transfer and retail pilots, add tokenisation pilots, run a CBDC and Asset Tokenisation sandbox, and explore bilateral and multilateral cross-border pilots in financial year 2026-27.
• Agora results, late 2026. After roughly six months of testing from January 2026, participants were due to report to decision makers on what a launch would require, possibly adding currencies already settled through CLS.
• UAE to India. Any operational CBUAE and RBI pilot would be one of the first live retail-adjacent corridor tests involving India.
• Wholesale tokenised settlement. Fnality's expansion beyond sterling, funded by its 2025 round, will show whether privately run, central-bank-backed settlement can compete with direct wholesale CBDCs.

Partnerships listed are those confirmed by a central bank, the company or a reliable report as of October 2026. This article is research, not procurement or legal advice.

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