News
Baidu Finance News: Digital Currency Development in Emerging Countries
发布时间：2022-08-25 浏览：122
Reference News Network reported on August 3 According to the "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" report on August 2, emerging market countries have taken the lead in developing digital currencies.
The report said that the digital currency "CBDC" issued by the central bank is beginning to spread in emerging market countries. Although developed countries such as Europe and the United States with sufficient financial infrastructure hesitate to move forward, Latin American and Asian countries are stepping up the introduction of digital currencies. Its main focus is to achieve "inclusive finance" - allowing people without bank accounts to enjoy financial services. Although emerging market countries also intend to improve the convenience of local currencies to get rid of the over-reliance on the dollar, they still have to solve many issues such as infrastructure construction.
"No cash, no problem!" is the slogan of the CBDC "JAM-DEX" that the Bank of Jamaica (Central Bank) will issue in phases starting this spring.
Jamaica central bank governor Richard Byers said: "It costs more than $7 million a year to change paper currency alone. We want to make life easier for merchants and consumers." Using cash increases storage and transportation costs. cost. The Central Bank of Jamaica plans to improve the efficiency of financial transactions by promoting CBDC.
Users can install e-wallets that use CBDC on their smartphones, the report said. Through commercial banks and private settlement companies acting as intermediaries, users can exchange between the local currency Jamaican dollar and CBDC. Even without a bank account, users get transaction records, can receive loans, and more.
More than 2,000 stores such as pharmacies and beauty salons use CBDC. When paying with CBDC, a QR code can be scanned with a smartphone or the payment amount can be entered on an e-wallet.
Among the Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia is one step ahead. The country will issue the digital currency "Bakong" in October 2020. Although the Central Bank of Cambodia believes that it is "different from CBDC" from a legal perspective, it also has the conditions of being digitized and issued by the central bank, so it can be said to be a "quasi-CBDC".
The system was jointly developed by the Central Bank of Cambodia and Japanese fintech firm Soramitsu. This is a mechanism that allows users to exchange Cambodian riel and "bakong". "Bacon" is issued by the central bank with commercial banks acting as intermediaries.
In Cambodia, when remittances to other banks, it sometimes takes 2 to 3 days from the window to receive the money. And if you use "Bacon", you can get the account on the same day, and there is no handling fee.
According to statistics from the Bank for International Settlements, about 90% of the central banks worldwide have begun to study CBDC. "There has been an unprecedented reversal of emerging market countries' lead over developed countries in the practical application of CBDCs," said Naitochi Naito, chief researcher at Daiwa Research Institute.
The report pointed out that emerging market countries are actively introducing CBDC because they can expect to have a greater effect. According to a survey by the World Bank, in 2021, 83% of people in emerging market countries will own mobile phones and smartphones, exceeding the proportion of bank accounts (71%). If CBDC is popularized through smartphones, many people can enjoy financial services from remittances to loans. Finance will act as a lubricant, which is expected to boost the economy.