Projects to develop a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) for use by consumers and businesses are “more advanced” and “particularly strong” in emerging economies, according to analysis by global consultancy firm PwC... More
The UK Treasury and the Bank of England have established a central bank digital currency (CBDC) taskforce to coordinate research into the benefits, risks and practicalities of introducing a digital pound... More
More than two-fifths (43%) of Europeans rank privacy as the most important feature of a digital euro central bank digital currency (CBDC), with 18% citing security, 11% the ability to pay across the eurozone, 9% the lack of additional costs and 8% offline usability, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) survey... More
The Central Bank of Russia will build a prototype central bank digital currency (CBDC) by December 2021 using a two-tier structural model unveiled by bank representatives at a press conference... More
Residents of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Kitts and Nevis can now pay for goods and services and make peer-to-peer money transfers from their smartphones using the East Caribbean Central Bank’s DCash central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Customers of all six state-owned Chinese banks can now apply for test versions of the banks’ digital yuan wallets as the country rolls out the next phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot programme in the city of Changsha... More
Visa has become the first major payments network to settle a transaction with an issuing or acquiring partner by exchanging funds in digital currency rather than in traditional fiat currency... More
The Wall Street Journal has posted a video report showing Chinese consumers in the city of Chengdu using the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to make in-store NFC and QR code payments from a digital yuan wallet on their mobile phone... More
Jamaica is to pilot a central bank digital currency (CBDC) over the course of this year and begin rolling it out in 2022, the country’s minister of finance Nigel Clarke has revealed during a budget speech... More
Some 8,500 consumers in the Chinese city of Shanghai have been given e-wallets containing digital yuan as part of the country’s ongoing pilot scheme for its central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Tencent-backed WeBank and Ant-backed MyBank are conducting “preliminary work under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)” in order to integrate the digital yuan wallet into their payment and banking services, according to a China Securities report... More
Russian mobile network operators Beeline and MegaFon are looking to develop digital wallets for smartphones and other mobile devices that will support the central bank digital currency (CBDC) which is being developed by The Central Bank of Russia (CBR)... More
Citizens of the Bahamas can now pay for goods and services using a prepaid card that supports the country’s Sand Dollar central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Chinese consumers taking part in the large-scale testing of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Beijing over the Chinese New Year period are trialling a biometric ‘hard wallet’ card developed by the Postal Savings Bank of China... More
Amazon is recruiting a tech team that will be tasked with building “innovative payment products for customers in emerging markets” that will enable “customers to convert their cash into digital currency” to purchase “goods and/or services like Prime Video”, a job advertisement posted by the company reveals... More
The People’s Bank of China has launched the first large-scale giveaway of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be held in Beijing and has distributed 10m digital yuan (US$1.55m) to 50,000 participants in a ‘red envelope’ lottery... More
More than four-fifths of the world’s central banks (86%) are engaged in “some form of work” on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), up from “about one third” in 2019, according to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey... More
At least eight major banks, including Hong Kong-based China CITIC Bank, have now introduced or are in the process of introducing digital wallets that support China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to local media reports... More
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is to develop a proof of concept platform to explore the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for cross-border payments and has identified CBDCs as one of six “thematic priorities” for the year... More
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is to follow its pilots of NFC-based contactless digital currency payments with the distribution of a further 20m digital yuan (US$3.1m) in a third ‘red envelope’ lottery to be held in the city of Shenzhen... More
