Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has announced it has minted Jamaica's first batch of central bank digital currency (CBDC). The bank wants to issue a total of $1.4 million in CBDC to deposit-taking institutions and authorized payment service providers during the CBDC pilot exercise which ends in December.
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BOJ Governor, Richard Byles, estimates that the next step after this milestone is "to ensure widespread access and acceptance by taking CBDC to the people."
As iHodl earlier reported, the BOJ will pilot the CBDC with a National Commercial Bank (NCB) where customers could test the new currency. Byles highlighted the CBDC will not be issued directly from the BOJ to customer. Instead, the digital currency will only be sold to licensed commercial banks, deposit-taking institutions (DTIs) and payment service providers.
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