Thai Central Bank Developing Own Digital Currency

investopedia.com:

If you can’t beat them, join them. Unable to control the growing popularity and adoption of cryptocurrencies, which mostly remain outside of the purview of central banks and other regulatory authorities, it seems that central banks across the globe are gradually opening up to embrace the phenomenon. The latest to explore launching its own cryptocurrency is the Bank of Thailand (BoT). (See also: Can Bitcoin Kill Central Banks?)

The Thai central bank has announced joining hands with technology partner R3 and eight financial institutions to create a digital currency called the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). It will be based on Corda, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform developed by the enterprise-focused tech company R3, which has extensive experience in leading and consulting DLT projects and implementations.

The partnering firms include influential names of the Thai financial markets: Bangkok Bank Public Company Ltd., Krung Thai Bank Public Company Ltd., Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Ltd., KasikornbankPublic Company Ltd., Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Ltd., Thanachart Bank Public Company Ltd., Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) Public Company Ltd., and HSBC (HSBC).

The initiative is named Project Inthanon and will be implemented in phases. During the initial phase, the project will explore the implications and the potential benefits of DLT to enhance efficiency of Thai financial market infrastructure. All partnering entities will collaborate to design, develop and test a proof of concept (POC) prototype that will support wholesale funds transfers by using CBDC tokens. The first phase is expected to be completed by early 2019 and will also involve testing features like liquidity saving mechanism and