National rollout of the Bank of Jamaica’s digital currency set for early 2022
The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), working with eCurrency Mint Inc., has successfully completed its central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof of concept and pilot work, and will begin a public rollout in Q1 2022. After a prototype was tested in the BOJ’s Fintech Regulatory Sandbox, in May 2021 the National Commercial Bank (NCB) was brought onboard for further testing. On August 9-10 the BOJ minted $230 million of CBDC of which $1 million was distributed to BOJ staff for further internal testing.
On October 29, the BOJ distributed $5 million of CBDC to the NCB for an NCB-sponsored “Market on the Lawn” pilot event, for which 4 small merchants and 53 consumers were onboarded to conduct transactions between each other. The NCB will continue onboarding customers, plus two additional wallet providers will soon be able to order CBDC from the BOJ and distribute to their customers. Interoperability will be tested between customers of various participating wallet providers. [Read more]
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