Brazil minister says country will have own CBDC. Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes has said that Brazil will issue its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
The statement from Guedes came on Thursday, during a ceremony celebrating the 100 millionth digital savings account opened at Caixa Economica Federal “Now that the central bank is autonomous again, it’s also amazing in the digital dimension: Pix, OpenBank, fintechs and digital currency. Brazil will have its own digital currency. Brazil is ahead of many countries.”
This is the first time the minister has spoken directly on the subject, even though he did not provide any further information on the central bank’s CBDC project.
Earlier in August, Banco Central do Brasil announced that it had set up a study group on the potential issuance of digital truths. Consequently, Roberto Campos Neto, president of the central bank, said that Brazil wants a “improvement” in its currency and that this would happen within the framework of Pix, a new digital federal payment system.
“In our case, Pix is very important because from now on, we see the union of an instant, open and interoperable form of payment with an open data system. They will meet somewhere in the future with a currency that has yet to be perfected.”
In addition, although the central bank has not yet disclosed how the real’s digital version will actually work, Campos Neto has already declared that it will go into circulation as early as 2022.
[image: Mariano Diaz]