Malaysia has joined the growing group of countries looking into researching and developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC)..
The central bank of Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia, told Bloomberg on Jan. 17 that while exactly how to move forward with a CBDC has yet to be decided, has focused its research on a CBDC “through proof of concept and experimentation to improve our technical and political capabilities”.
He also stated that the ostensible reason for the current research effort was to ensure that it is prepared to launch a CBDC program “should the need arise to issue a CBDC in the future”.
In 2021, Malaysia collaborated with South Africa, Australia and its Southeast Asian neighbor Singapore to develop a CBDC pilot called Project Dunbar., according to a joint announcement.
The Dunbar Project used the Corda and Quorum blockchain platforms from r3 and ConsenSys, respectively, to demonstrate various blockchain-based cross-border remittance capabilities.. In particular, it sought to demonstrate how blockchain technology could “eliminate the need for intermediaries and reduce the time and cost of transactions.”
A growing number of nations are investigating how a CBDC program would work in their jurisdiction. China is by far the largest country currently running a CBDC pilot program, dubbed Digital Yuan, and the mobile app already has more than 20 million downloads. from January 4. China plans to launch the program and allow international visitors to access the Digital Yuan with their passports during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing next month.
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECB) launched its definitive CBDC, called the “EC dollar”, in March 2021. As of December 2021, Antigua was the last of the eight ECB jurisdictions that had not adopted the community dollar. The neighbor Jamaica also plans to launch a final CBDC in the first quarter of 2022, following the success of the pilot program that concluded two weeks ago..
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