Will central-bank digital currencies break the banking system?

IMAGINE IT IS 2035 and a financial crisis is raging. Credit is drying up; banks’ share prices look like ski slopes and every news report features sweaty traders in shirtsleeves tugging at their collars. You log on to your banking app and peer anxiously at your savings. You could transfer them to another bank, but none seems safe. Fuelling a traditional bank run by withdrawing physical banknotes, even if there were any branches left, would be tragically passé. Luckily, there is a new escape route. At the touch of a button, you can move your funds into a central-bank digital currency (CBDC), a government-issued virtual store of value that is completely safe.