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Kazakhstan central financial institution critiques digital tenge pilot successes, subsequent steps

15 Dec 2023
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The digital tenge, Kazakhstan’s central financial institution digital forex (CBDC), has been declared a hit after a month-long pilot project. A bunch of enterprise, regulatory and technical enhancements are lined up for it in 2024.

Throughout its pilot run, the digital tenge was used to supply schoolchildren with free lunches in Almaty by the native Onay! card, which was initially designed to be used within the transit system. The Kazpost postal system operator served because the middleman for these transactions.

Plastic playing cards had been issued to members of focus teams by 4 native banks along side Visa and Mastercard. The playing cards allowed customers to make purchases in individual or on-line and to withdraw money from ATMs. The collaborating service provider had the choice of accepting digital tenge or changing them to “non-cash” tenge.

A digital tenge card. Supply: Islam Yerzhan, LinkedIn

By changing digital tenge, they had been built-in into current point-of-sale and QR techniques. The playing cards had been practical all through and out of doors of Kazakhstan. The report claimed this stage of interoperability was a primary for a CBDC.

Different experiments performed with the digital tenge included making cross-border payments via SWIFT and issuance of CBDC-backed stablecoins on Binance and KASE platforms. Digital tenge had been used for tokenizing gold, value-added tax was collected utilizing a sensible contract and a move-to-earn app was trialed.

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The Nationwide Financial institution of Kazakhstan and the Nationwide Fee Company of Kazakhstan (NPCK), a physique established in September to administer the nationwide CBDC, have a protracted record of objectives for 2024. They embrace rising the variety of middleman banks and additional growing decentralized finance functions.

The companies hope to hold out offline transactions at scale, which might dramatically improve monetary inclusion within the nation, since web connectivity is restricted in some areas. They can even improve participation in cross-border fee tasks. Kazakhstan is an observer in Project mBridge. Additionally they have regulatory and legislative objectives that should be applied concurrently, they usually hope to extend digital tenge safety and processing pace.

NPCK CEO Binur Zhalenov gave assurances in an interview aired on the eve of the report’s launch that the digital tenge wouldn’t be used for surveillance of customers.

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