Bank Of Thailand Launches Its Digital Currency Pilot Project

The Bank of Thailand launches a new project to pilot test its central bank digital currency (CBDC) payment system with the largest building material provider in the country. We are talking about Siam Cement Group (SCG) which is the newest partner of the Thai bank.

As announced in an official statement this week, the bank plans to test the system with large-scale enterprises before launching it for all businesses. This is why they partnered with the largest cement and building material provider in Thailand, SCG as well as the Thailand-based fintech firm Digital Ventures Company Limited to pilot test their payment prototype system.

What we can also notice is that Bank of Thailand launches the project and schedules it for July 2020 as the start date. The pilot test with SCG, as the cryptocurrency news show, is expected to conclude by the end of the year. With CDBC payments, the bank will aim for a more efficient payment system that comes with increased flexibility for fund transfers as well as faster payment between suppliers.

After the pilot, Bank of Thailand will assess the system’s feasibility and find a way to integrate CBDC payments on other business platforms. The bank also noted that it will build the CBDC payment prototype based on the successful Project Intathon – known as a collaborative wholesale CBDC payments project that was conducted by the Bank of Thailand and eight other financial institutions and completed in January 2020.

Meanwhile, China is still one of the frontrunners in the Bitcoin news in the central bank digital currency (CBDC) space. While many countries are experimenting with developing a CBDC, China apparently decided to roll out its digital yuan and emphasized on the importance of CBDC many times.

While China innovates and Bank of Thailand launches a new CBDC project, we can also see the Bank of Canada posting a job opening titled “Project Manager for CBDC” which is another sign that Canada is stepping into the space of central bank digital currencies. Banque de France (Bank of France) also tested a digital euro in a successful attempt last month.

So, the big question is – is crypto regulation finally coming to us in the form of CBDC?