Investigating central bank digital currency adoption

Purpose Central bank digital currencies will fundamentally reshape monetary transactions and financial market infrastructure. This transformation raises significant enterprise information management challenges, as balancing privacy concerns and regulatory compliance requires public trust through robust data governance while accounting for culture in user adoption and acceptance. This study investigates central bank digital currency adoption by focusing on how public perception is affected by public trust in central banks, privacy concerns and culture. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a multivocal systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines to identify research gaps and adoption drivers. Based on this review, we developed a conceptual framework summarizing factors influencing central bank digital currency adoption into five major clusters. The framework was tested through a two-round Delphi study with twenty international experts from relevant fields. Findings The key findings, primarily characterized by the governmental cluster and the primacy of regulation, ease of use and institutional trust, position these elements as crucial adoption drivers for central bank digital currencies. This reliance demonstrates the fundamental role of enterprise information management in ensuring security, integrity and transparency. The research highlights the often-overlooked cultural dimension, emphasizing that adoption requires not just infrastructure but societal alignment and public trust outcomes directly tied to effective data governance and enterprise information management practices. The proposed conceptual framework provides central banks, policymakers and regulators with a globally relevant, enterprise information management-aligned methodology to design people-centered central bank digital currency initiatives and proactively address information-centric barriers to acceptance. Research limitations/implications The Delphi panel size, while adequate for qualitative insights and consensus, limits the statistical generalizability of the findings. Thus, the results should be interpreted in terms of analytical rather than statistical generalization. Future research should validate these findings through larger-scale, cross-country interviews. Furthermore, the predominantly financial, regulatory and technical experts’ backgrounds introduce a potential expert-centric bias and may underrepresent perspectives from non-expert stakeholders, including the general public. Subsequent studies should, therefore, incorporate more diverse participant viewpoints. Additionally, while the study draws on Hofstede’s framework to contextualize cultural differences in adoption, its integration remains limited in scope and depth, potentially affecting operationalization and cross-cultural validity. The analysis does not fully operationalize cultural theory nor incorporate non-English literature, which is justified by English’s dominant role in international finance and central banking research. Although English dominates international finance and central banking research, this may exclude relevant studies; however, prior systematic literature review research suggests that such exclusions often do not materially affect overall conclusions. Future research could engage more deeply with cross-cultural theory and multilingual sources to enhance global representativeness and further validate these results. Practical implications This study provides a practical central bank digital currency adoption framework for central banks, lawmakers and regulators that offer a people-centered approach for central bank digital currency initiatives, applicable to both developing and developed economies. Robust enterprise information management underpins this framework by ensuring that transactional and personal data are governed by clear policies, maintained for quality and accuracy and secured through a resilient, interoperable architecture that supports regulatory compliance and public trust. Nigeria’s eNaira highlights a key practical lesson: central bank digital currency implementation alone does not ensure adoption. Policymakers must pair regulatory clarity with sustained public communication, financial literacy, trust-building measures and user-oriented design strategies. Beyond the technological and financial aspects of central bank digital currencies, this study highlights a significant gap in incorporating the human factor and its interplay with the technological and financial elements concerning adoption. Originality/value This study contributes to the emerging body of knowledge on central bank digital currency adoption and enterprise information management by shifting the focus toward socio-behavioral drivers. It offers a conceptual framework combining prominent adoption factors and providing actionable insights for guiding central bank digital currency design and implementation strategies.