A draft of the recent economic stimulus included mention of a digital dollar that could be used to deliver payments directly to US citizens. This would require the Fed to maintain a wallet for all citizens. It was mentioned again in another Senate bil, but ultimately it was dropped from the final bill.
Very interesting developments to say the least!
With the creation of a country-specific digital currency is becoming more and more of a possibility (of some country somewhere), using it as a delivery system for stimulus checks here in the US will still run into the same issues facing the administration/Treasury today, at least with paper checks.
The individuals in most need of a stimulus check don’t have the necessary infrastructure to make this easily possible. No Internet access, no computer, no smart phone with data, let alone exposure to digital payments and digital wallets. We also can’t forget about bank accounts. I’m assuming there’s at least some subset of the population that is un-banked, still living in a cash-rules-everything-around-me world. The challenge will be getting those people into the digital world.