The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has announced the appointment of a new CBDC research team that will continue the work of the previous group of experts who analyzed various issues around the central bank's digital currency. It is known, however, that it is about studying various aspects of this topic, and not directly preparing for the issue of a new version of the country's currency.
Bank of Japan The Bank of Japan announced new news on July 20. The authorities have just created a new CBDC team to accelerate research into the feasibility of central bank digital currencies.
The team takes over this task from the previous expert group that was set up earlier this year. At the same time, it will continue the research work undertaken with other central banks. The BoJ, however, said it has no plans to issue its own digital currency at the moment, although that may change in the future.
BoJ has previously done its research into the feasibility of the national digital currency, and in January it formed a digital currency working group with five other central banks from Canada, UK, Sweden, Switzerland and the European Union.
The new decision is probably the next step in the country's new economic strategy, which includes, among others, CBDCA.
Unclear situation in the country
But the situation is quite complicated and, in fact, unclear. The vice president of the BoJ said in January that his institution must be ready to issue CBDC in the event of a sharp increase in demand for this type of payment solutions. Then, earlier this month, he added that the bank would begin the process of testing the viability of the digital yen concept.
Despite such optimistic signals, officially there are still no plans to launch the digitized yen, but this may change in the future.
Meanwhile, the major Japanese bank MUFG has announced that it plans to release its own stablecoin later this year.
It is possible that in 2020 the digital yuan will also appear on the market, because advanced tests of the new currency are already underway in China.
France is also considering the digital euro, and the topic of the digital dollar returns more and more often in the public debate in the US.