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The Jamaican Minister of Finance has announced the CBDC will be piloted in December 2021 ahead of launch.
He said this during the annual National Budget Debate, Jamaica is planning to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2022. The government views the accelerated transition to a digital society and economy as vital to economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister of Finance also believes that a CBDC can greatly improve financial inclusion by making financial services available to the Caribbean nation’s unbanked population. He also clarified that a CBDC issued and backed by the central bank of Jamaica (BoJ) is not a cryptocurrency.
The CBDC will be legal tender and interchangeable with the Jamaican dollar (JMD) in cash on a one-to-one basis.
Jamaica has been working on a CBDC project since early 2020. In May 2020, the Bank of Jamaica tweeted it is researching CBDCs internally as it introduced its new fintech regulatory sandbox. The following month, the bank formally invited interested CBDC providers to develop and test potential CBDC solutions in its sandbox.
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