Global: Bank of Japan Set to Test CBDC

The Bank of Japan will reportedly join a host of other countries in testing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in experiments with three of the country’s banks in 2023.

According to a report by Nikkei Wednesday (Nov. 23, 2022), the bank will conduct the tests in the spring of 2023, working with private lenders and other organizations to test if there are any issues related to bank deposits and withdrawals.

The test will also try to determine if a digital yen will survive natural disasters and in places without internet access. These experiments will last about two years, with the bank deciding on whether to issue a digital yen in 2026, Nikkei said.

The central bank says other financial institutions have been eager to join the program, Nikkei reports. The BOJ is also shopping for FinTechs and IT companies to develop ID verification tools and other security measures.

With these experiments, Japan will join a number of countries whose central banks have launched CBDC pilots.

Earlier this month, the banks of France, Singapore, and Switzerland launched Project Mariana, a collaboration trialing their experimental CBDCs and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

In this six-month experiment — said to be the first of its kind, and involving hypothetical CBDCs from each of the three countries the project will test cross-border CBDC trading and settlement

One day later, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) debuted Ubin+, a program to test the use of a wholesale CBDC in cross-border foreign exchange settlement.

The central bank said in a news release that the program will study “business models and governance structures for cross-border foreign exchange (FX) settlement, where atomic settlement, based on digital currencies, can improve efficiencies and reduce settlement risks compared to existing payment and settlement rails.”