The Bank of Thailand will launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project this month. Three payment service providers will participate in it, according to local media. Up to 10,000 users will participate in the project and it will last until August.
Bank of Ayudhya, Krungsri, Siam Commercial Bank and Singapore-based payment service provider 2C2P will collaborate with the Thai central bank on the project. Each of these organizations has made available to selected users an application that includes a wallet and a QR code scanner.
krungsri will recruit up to 2,000 employees to participate in the project, along with some 100 merchants located in the vicinity of the bank’s headquarters. Also will expand the project to its Ploenchit branch. Krungsri Innovate Managing Director Sam Tanskul declared:
“The bank needs to determine a strategy to differentiate retail CBDCs from [su] PromptPay service”.
The Siam Commercial Bank pilot project will work in a similar way to the Krungsri one, with the participation of staff and neighboring businesses.
The pilot project was announced in August and was initially scheduled to launch in 2022. The Bank of Thailand has qualified the “pilot to learn” project rather than a pilot launch. The central bank has no official plans to launch a CBDC.
Twenty commercial banks in #HongKong, #China, #UAE and #Thailand used #mBridge and #CBDC to conduct payment and foreign exchange payment-versus-payment transactions on behalf of their corporate clients. Read the full report pic.twitter.com/TE6Dv0dszr
—Digital Pound Foundation (@digitalpoundfdn) October 27, 2022
The Bank of Thailand announced that it was developing a wholesale CBDC in 2018. He was involved in the Bank for International Settlements’ mBridge cross-border payments project and the Inthanon-Lion Rock project with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
In March, the country exempted companies that issue investment tokens from corporation tax and value added tax. A government spokesman said that Thailand could lose about $1 billion in revenue, but expected investment tokens to generate $3.7 billion over the next two years.
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