Valery SharifulinTASS is pictured.
The Jamaican government said Friday that it will roll out its central bank digital currency in the first quarter of 2022, following a successful pilot.
The pilot began in May and ended in December after the announcement of a prototype. The Bank of Jamaica worked with eCurrency Mint. The National Commercial Bank was part of the pilot to test the range of services.
The services that were tested included minting $1.5 million worth of CBDCs, issuing them to wallet providers, and distributing the digital currencies to retail customers.
NCB was the first wallet provider to be onboarded with four small merchants and 53 consumers during the pilot.
New customers will be onboarded, two additional wallet providers will be allowed to order CBDCs from the central bank, and test transactions between wallet providers.
A central bank liability is similar to a currency and could be used by the general public. It has the full backing of the central bank, but could be managed by private financial institutions.
A tracker by the Atlantic Council shows that China and South Korea are among 14 economies that are in the pilot stage of exploring their own CBDCs. Nine of them have been fully launched.
The US is the furthest behind the four largest central banks, according to the tracker.
Business Insider has an original article.
