In March, Brazil’s central bank launched its digital currency pilot project. The South American country intends to popularize financial services in the country, and emulate the success of its instant payment system, Pix.
The apex bank has now picked 14 institutions to take part in the pilot program of its CBDC. Prominent companies like Visa and Microsoft have been selected to participate. The list also includes names like B3, Brazil’s largest stock exchange; local private banks like Nubank, Bradesco, and Itaú Unibanco; and the largest public Brazilian bank, Banco do Brasil.
Brazil's Central Bank selects 14 participants for CBDC pilot, including VISA and Microsoft
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Participant incorporation to begin in mid-June
In all, the bank received 36 interest proposals from around 100 institutions. The applicants had feet immersed in different financial sectors including payments, banking, crypto, financial market infrastructure, etc.
Brazil’s central bank will start incorporating participants into the Real Digital Pilot Platform in mid-June.
Recently, the coordinator of the initiative at the bank hinted that the public use of the digital currency will likely begin by the end of 2024. Essentially, that’s set to happen after the testing phase winds up. The said phase will include buying and selling of federal public bonds among individuals, and its subsequent evaluation.
Specifically, the ‘Digital Real’ will be built as a means of payment. Moreover, it will deploy the distributed ledger technology [DLT] to support the provision of retail financial services settled via tokenized deposits in Brazilian financial institutions.
Also Read: Brazil’s Central Bank Launches Experimental CBDC
Alongside Brazil, several other nations are working on their respective CBDC projects. Last week, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the launch of its e-HKD Pilot Program. Around 16 firms from the FinTech sector are set take part in the trial run of Hong Kong’s CBDC program. Ripple Labs is the only representative from the crypto space. Its proposed use case revolves around the settlement of tokenized assets.
In another parallel development, the blockchain firm also announced the launch of the ‘Ripple CBDC Platform’. The said end-to-end solution will help central banks, governments, and financial institutions to issue their own CBDC.
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