The central bank and MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative will collaborate on a 12-month research project related to central-bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, the bank said in a statement. (The Logic)

Talking point: The initiative comes as the central bank ramps up its exploration of how it might issue a digital currency. Though it hasn’t decided whether to develop one, it’s published a number of studies that go into detail about the design of a potential system and how it would affect the economy. Countries around the world—most notably China—have started to roll out government-issued digital currencies, which could serve as an alternative to cash. Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an executive order that tasks the U.S. government with researching whether it should issue its own CBDC.