TL;DR Breakdown
- Thailand set to launch CBDC.
- Why the country wants a CBDC.
Thailand’s central bank has announced plans to begin working on a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and how it would start test on the digital currency in 2022.
The bank announced a press release on Friday as they asked residents of the country to give their opinion on the roadmap for the digital currency project.
Thailand’s central bank also released a report which analyses the CBDC thesis. The report talks about why a digital currency is to be developed and that thriving private stablecoins like USDT, BUSD are a threat to monetary sovereignty and financial stability. The bank also reveals in the report that steps towards developing the CBDC would begin with engaging respective stakeholders. They would look at advantages the digital currency would bring and analyze risks and opportunities with the currency.
Why a Thailand CBDC?
Vachira Arromdee, the assistant governor of the financial markets operations group at the BoT, said the country needs a CBDC to improve access to financial services in the country. He notes that the CBDC could be ready in three to five years and gave members three months to submit their comments on the proposal.
The BoT is a CBDC coalition of Hong Kong, China, and the United Arab Emirates. The coalition is exploring the idea of a cross-border CBDC as regional CBDC is becoming a trend.
In the Eastern Caribbean, the regional central bank recently launched a regional CBDC for some of the countries in the Union. Similarly, pipework for a regional CBDC is ongoing in Europe as European Union Central Bank Governor Christine Lagarde talked about it in a Bloomberg interview recently.
Largesse noted that by 2025 a European CBDC would be ready if they get approval to go ahead with the project amidst series of bottlenecks hindering the development of the digital currency.
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