Jamaica to roll out the digital currency of its Central Bank in the first quarter of 2022

The Jamaican government has announced the launch of the digital currency of the Central Bank of Jamaica in the first quarter of 2022. After the announcement of CBDC’s prototype in March, which started in May and concluded in December. 

The Bank of Jamaica worked with the digital currency vendor eCurrency Mint. The National Commercial Bank of Jamaica also participated in the testing of the range for services to be offered.

The test included minting CBDC worth $1.5 million and issuing them to wallet providers and distributing the digital currencies to retail customers. The NCB was the first wallet provider to be issued CBDCs during the pilot. It also onboarded four small merchants along with 53 customers.

For the full rollout, NCB will try to get more customers on board. Other than NCB, two more wallet providers will be allowed to order CBDCs from the central bank and test transactions between customers of wallet providers.

According to a tracker of the Atlantic Council, 87 other countries are also exploring their own CBDCs and 14 countries are in the pilot stage including major economies like China and South Korea. At present, nine countries have already launched their CBDCs.