ChainCatcher news, according to Ledger Insights, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) recently announced that it has completed a proof-of-concept trial for its Agila project wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) in collaboration with other financial institutions. Specifically, the latest trial tested whether banks in the Philippines could make payments to each other outside of banking hours, such as during evenings, weekends, and holidays.BSP Governor Eli M. Remolona, Jr. stated, "Wholesale CBDC is expected to enhance liquidity management, reduce settlement risk, and support financial stability. The insights from this project will guide BSP's CBDC roadmap. Our goal is to leverage new technologies to further improve the efficiency and resilience of the national payment system."

ChainCatcher news, Brazil is preparing to deepen its activities around its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project drex. The Central Bank of Brazil announced that the pilot project will be open to more participants, aiming to expand the testing of more complex use cases within the platform. The new alliance will be able to submit its proposals for review by the project execution management committee from October 14 to November 29.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Brazil is integrating decentralized finance (DeFi) into its ongoing experiments to develop a "synthetic" central bank digital currency (CBDC) called Drex, which was previously known as the digital Brazilian real.On October 3, Brazilian Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto emphasized the country's need for a multidimensional CBDC, which aims to address the "trilemma" of decentralization, privacy, and programmability—challenges that traditional markets face when trying to solve these issues simultaneously.

ChainCatcher news, the Korea Times cited sources saying that later this year, 100,000 people will participate in a large-scale pilot for tokenized deposits. The report stated that the deposit tokens will be "similar to using vouchers," which is consistent with previously announced plans.A year ago, the Bank of Korea announced plans to issue wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) to support interbank settlements of bank tokenized deposits. The pilot involving up to 100,000 participants will begin in September or October of this year.In June, two government agencies announced funding for the voucher project being developed by the central bank, where the deposit tokens can be used for welfare, culture, education, and other services. However, today's report indicates that the vouchers in the pilot will be used to purchase goods at convenience stores.A banking official told the Korea Times, "Although the timeline seems slightly delayed compared to our initial expectations, we are working hard to launch the CBDC test involving 100,000 participants using deposit tokens by the end of this year, which will be a global milestone."

ChainCatcher news, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revealed that as of June, there are 5 million digital rupee users and 420,000 merchants participating in the retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot. The RBI emphasized that the digital rupee aims to complement cash and existing payment systems, serving both wholesale and retail sectors.

ChainCatcher news, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced the launch of a pilot program to introduce the country's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) on Kish Island in the south. The CBI stated on Tuesday that starting from June 21, bank customers and visitors in Kish will receive digital rials.This launch expands the pilot program that began in May 2023, involving collaboration with Iran's Tejarat and Mellat banks. The digital rial will be used for retail transactions, including the purchase of goods and services. Iran initiated its digital currency program in 2021 after preliminary research and approval from the country's High Monetary and Credit Council.

ChainCatcher news, the Central Bank of Iran has officially announced the launch of a pilot program for the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) digital rial. As part of the pilot, the Iranian digital currency will be available to bank customers and tourists on Kish Island. The pilot program will start on June 21, which is the first day of the Islamic month of Tammuz.

ChainCatcher news, the Central Bank of Brazil recently stated that the pilot for the CBDC project drex has been postponed to 2025 due to the inefficiency of the privacy solutions provided. The new pilot phase will start in July and end in 2025, at which point third parties will be allowed to implement new features including smart contracts.

ChainCatcher news, the Swiss National Bank has launched a wholesale CBDC pilot in collaboration with the SIX digital trading platform and six commercial banks. The pilot project is named Helvetia Phase III and aims to create a tokenized version of the Swiss franc for transactions between financial institutions on the SDX for digital securities trading. The commercial banks involved in this collaboration include Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Basler Kantonalbank, Commerzbank, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, UBS, and Zürcher Kantonalbank. The pilot will run from December 2023 to June 2024.

ChainCatcher news, payment giant MasterCard has participated in the central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), exploring potential use cases for CBDC in Australia. MasterCard also showcased a solution that enables CBDC to be tokenized (or wrapped) onto different blockchains.This solution was developed in collaboration with Australian payment and regulated data service provider Cuscal and NFT-as-a-service provider Mintable, ensuring that the pilot CBDC can only be held, used, and redeemed by authorized parties (who have passed KYC verification and risk assessment through licensed service providers). MasterCard demonstrated in a live environment how this solution allows holders of the pilot CBDC to purchase NFTs listed on Ethereum.

ChainCatcher news, the Bank of Korea will launch a public central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot experiment next year.According to informed sources, "The Bank of Korea will publicly conduct a small-scale settlement-type CBDC experiment in July this year for financial institutions that participated in last year's CBDC simulation experiment. Based on this, a CBDC pilot will be conducted for the public next year." (source link)

ChainCatcher News, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has released the results of the second phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof of concept (PoC) experiment and confirmed that its CBDC pilot project was launched as scheduled in April. The second phase of the PoC ran for a year from April 2022 to March 2023, testing the technology for implementing limits on CBDC holdings to ensure the stability of the financial system, such as in the event of sudden transfers of bank accounts to CBDC, and also examined the convenience for users in initiating and scheduling payments. (Source link)