The Bank of Thailand (BoT) turned out to be one of the forerunners in the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as it is already testing digital baht transactions with some of the big businesses, local news outlet The National reported.
The development of the monetary regulator was revealed to the public by Vachira Arromdee, assistant governor at BoT.
She further detailed that the central bank has entered the third phase of the development of the digital fiat.
“The central bank is also thinking about expanding use of the cryptocurrency to the general public, but a comprehensive study must be completed before taking such action,” Arromdee added.
The rush to make CBDC mainstream
Most of the central banks ignored the importance of a digital version of the fiats, but they were prompted last year with a similar development of a digital yuan by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and Facebook’s proposal of launching Libra.
Though the global regulators are hostile to green light Facebook and its partners to launch the digital currency over concerns of privatization of the monetary system, the Chinese regulator has already finished its development process and began piloting digital yuan.
The assistant governor also warned against the impact of CBDC on the existing financial system especially on banks as the central bank can directly distribute the digital currency, she was also optimistic about the advantages including reduction of the financial transaction cost.
FortuneZ earlier reported on the BoT’s partnership with its Hong Kong counterpart for the development of a digital currency for crossborder payments.
Meanwhile, a few other central banks also made significant development for issuing CBDC. The Bank of France is partnering with major private players to run real-world tests of digital euro, while South Korea also initiated pilot.
(Photo: Veerathai Santiprabhob, Governor of the Bank of Thailand)
