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Ukraine’s central bank is considering a central bank digital currency to let users trade cryptocurrency.
According to a Monday (Nov. 28) news release from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the bank has discussed its plans for a digital version of the Ukrainian hryvnia with banks, non-banking financial institutions and representatives of the crypto market.
“E-hryvnia can become one of the key elements of qualitative infrastructure development for the virtual-assets market in Ukraine,” the bank said.
NBU has been exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC) since 2018 and in 2019 issued a report that explored the advantages and disadvantages of using decentralized tech for a CBDC.
Last year, new legislation adopted by the Ukrainian parliament addressed CBDCs and determined that it was functionally equal to cash or other payment methods.
NBU is among many central banks around the world testing CBDCs. Monday also saw the Reserve Bank of India say that it was readying a new phase of its CBDC project, looking at the currency’s retail usage.
Last month, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of “Project Aurum,” an experiment showing that CBDCs can work in tandem with private stablecoins.
“Project Aurum has made a number of ground-breaking achievements,” the study said, adding, “we have no doubt that the Aurum prototype will catalyze and inspire the global quest for the most suitable rCBDC [retail CBDC] architecture.”
More recently, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) debuted Ubin+, a program to test the use of a wholesale CBDC for cross-border foreign exchange settlement.
The central bank said in a news release that Ubin+ will study “business models and governance structures for cross-border foreign exchange settlement, where atomic settlement, based on digital currencies, can improve efficiencies and reduce settlement risks compared to existing payment and settlement rails.”
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