Jamaica is a step ahead of establishing its CBDC

• CBDC will be established by Jamaican central bank in the first quarter of this year
• Jamaican central bank has successfully accomplished its first CBDC pilot program
• NCB is the first wallet provider for the Jamaican national digital currency

CBDC is being analyzed by almost every country globally. China is the leading nation with its digital yuan. Following the potential of these central bank digital currencies, Jamaica, a country in the Caribbean, had also established a pilot program. The nation has recently announced that it has successfully completed its first national digital currency pilot. And now the Caribbean nation aims to introduce its first CBDC in the first quarter of this year.

Q1 2022 will witness first Jamaican CBDC

The Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) has officially announced that it has successfully completed its first pilot program. After proceeding with the initial digital national currency prototype testing in March last year, BoJ finished an eight month long pilot program. Notably, the program lasted till last week Friday, as per a report shared by the Jamaica Information Service. Now the nation aims to release its first CBDC by the end of the first quarter of this year. According to the reports, the BoJ now plans to proceed with a nationwide launch in Q1 2022.

NCB is the first Jamaican wallet provider

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Notably, the clients of the wallet were able to conduct person-to-person, cash-in and cash-out transactions at an NCB-sponsored event in December 2021. The two wallet providers have already been conducting crypto simulation testing and will be able to order CBDC from the Jamaican central bank. 

The wallet providers distribute it to their clients. BoJ also unveiled plans to focus on interoperability by testing transactions among clients of different wallet providers.

It is expected that with the establishment of the national digital currency the nation will add two new wallet providers. According to reports, National Commercial Bank (NCB) is the first wallet provider for the Jamaican national digital currency. The wallet onboarded 57 customers, which also include four small merchants and 53 consumers.

BoJ continued to mint its national digital currency

As part of the pilot program, the Jamaican central bank minted 230 million Jamaican dollars (JMD) worth of CBDC which is worth around $1.5 million. The funds will be issued for deposit taking institutions and authorized payment services providers. 

Later BoJ issued 1 million JMD, which is worth around $6,500 worth of digital currency. These funds were issued to the staff at the bank’s banking department. Simultaneously, the bank also issued 5 million JMD worth of CBDC to the NCB, which is one of the largest institutions of the nation.