Since central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, are becoming an increasingly hot topic among governments worldwide, yet another country wants to join the CBDC race and start issuing digital bank licenses. Qatar, known as one of the leading countries in Western Asia, plans to digitalize most of its products, including analysis of the current financial situation and issuing digital bank licenses.
QCB’s Head of FinTech, Alanood Abdullah Al Muftah, noted that the financial authority has already begun exploring various initiatives that will become clearer in the next few months.
“We’re trying to study the different aspects and verticals of fintech. We’re trying to set our direction. Each central bank should study digital banks, considering their growing significance in the global market”, Al Muftah added.
According to QCB’s fintech head, Qatar also plans to join the CBDC race, like many other national banks. However, Al Muftah noted that the QCB is still far away from launching such a product, as the central bank is still researching whether or not a CBDC project could be deployed, as well as the impact such a project could impose on the local monetary landscape.
COO and Digital Officer at Dukhan Bank, Narayanan Srinivasan, noted that his bank wants to establish a digital bank in Qatar, as well as adding blockchain technology for certain payment services.
The world embraces CBDCs
Several countries around the globe have been looking at CBDC development, as China is leading the pack in terms of CBDC development with multiple reported real-life tests. For instance, Jamaica’s central bank expressed its desire to airdrop $16 worth of its CBDC to the first 100,000 citizens that set up a wallet by April 1st. Jamaica’s central bank airdrop comes just days after the country unveiled the Jamaica Digital Exchange, or JAM-DEX, digital currency.
To further boost adoption, Jamaican Finance Minister Nigel Clarke said anybody with an existing bank account can automatically obtain a JAM-DEX wallet.
Canada also plans to release a CBDC project, as the central banking authority teamed up with MIT to research the pros and cons of such a product, with an estimated release date set by the end of 2022.
However, many large-scale economies are still lagging behind in CBDC research and development, The United States, for instance, has been wary of taking a proactive stance on CBDCs and had an indecisive approach for years without clearly determining whether it should launch a CBDC.
Nevertheless, the U.S. is feeling the pressure around developing such a product, as the Federal Reserve also weighed in on the positive and negative sides of a central bank digital currency.