Bank of Jamaica Completes First CBDC Pilot
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Jamaica Plans CBDC Rollout Later This Year
According to an official announcement, the BoJ’s CBDC trial began back in May and was completed on December 31, following an initial prototype testing in March. The country’s National Commercial Bank (NCB) was the first wallet provider in the CBDC pilot while Irish cryptography security firm eCurrency Mint served as the technology provider.
“National Commercial Bank, based on the extent of their experience in the sandbox, came onboard with the BOJ to test the range of services to be offered using the CBDC solution. Success of the pilot project was dependent on whether a central bank digital currency, along with the attendant technology solution, could be successfully implemented in Jamaica,” the BOJ said in a statement on Friday.
As part of the pilot, $1.5 million worth of CBDCs were issued to deposit-taking institutions and authorized payment service providers on August 9, 2021. A day later, the bank issued $6,500 worth of digital currency to its staff members. On October 29, 2021, CBDCs worth $32,000 million were issued to NCB, marking this, the first issuance of CBDC to a deposit-taking institution.
NCB being the wallet provider onboarded 57 customers which included 4 small merchants and 53 consumers. Customers could conduct person-to-person, cash-in, and cash-out transactions through 37 accounts including at an NCB-sponsored event held earlier in December 2021.
With the national roll-out planned for the first quarter, two new wallet providers will be added. The providers are already conducting virtual simulation testing and will be able to order CBDC from the central bank and distribute it to their customers.
The bank also aims to conduct test transactions between customers of various participating wallet providers in an interoperable manner.