Every nation is working towards turning their cash into the digital currency. China, India, Turkey, Singapore and few other countries have started pilot testing the digital currency in their nation. It's now time for the Kazakhstan to launch the CBDC.
They have the local currency named - "Tenge". This national currency would be released under the name as "Digital Tenge". This is currently under the pilot that is going to be released in limited demo for the year 2024. And once that gets some momentum in 2025 there would be final release to the open market for the citizens.
National Payment Corporation (NPC) recently held an event during which the chairman tested the digital tenge payment through the account which is tied to the debit card. This goes to show the tenge is ready for the prime time use case for the consumers.
Let's take a look at how the CBDC from the Kazakhstan is going to be deployed in the year ahead.
Pilot Mode of Digital Tenge
Kazakhstan started working on the digital currency for the nation during the pandemic times. China was testing out the CBDC demo at that time. And they managed to inspire many other nations for the same. And few of the asian and middle east nations picked up on the CBDC. UAE and Singapore too have managed to put out on the pilot for their blockchain based currency.
In 2023, first pilot of the digital tenge is in the process. And the NPC chairman of the bank has also managed to test the first transaction. And as of now that has succeeded too. Which means we have the nation moving towards the local currency in a digital format. And the currency would slowly replaced and new generations would adopt the digital asset currency.
Visa, Mastercard Collab & Usage Scenarios
In order to test out the infrastructure the Visa and Mastercard formed the alliance in many nations and they have manage to test it out across variety of the banks and the apps. For the card based payments and the tracking of the transactions, the collab with the visa and mastercard has worked. I am sure even the cross border payments can be done using the digital currency in due time if they can integrate internationally.
Usage scenario initially is through the app. And then it would be likely to be depoyed on the business, shops and other places of the govt. Which is what most of the digital currency usage places are designed to be. In short enough timeline we are going to be seeing how that scenario would be playing out.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Interference on CBDC
All things may be going on good but the IMF has a habit of being the spoil sport for someof the nations other than the western lobbies. Which means they want to keep an eye on the middle east and the nations which are on the grey list of the FATF. Which is why CBDC too would be watched by IMF.
2025 is the year when the pilot will be completed and the offline payments too would make use of the CBDC. Which goes to show that we would be seeing how that would be impacting the currency. And also how that would help their economy go much more stronger and they are making a good progress that would be visible to the IMF as well.
Kazakhstan is not lagging behind in the world anymore and it continues to stay invested in the blockchain. As the country launches the CBDC in the market, things would slowly change for them and new generation of citizens use the digital currency. All of this would help boost their economy and the cross border payments too.