TL:DR Breakdown:
- Saudi Arabia joint CBDC will not be available for individuals to use, according to SEMA exec.
- The CBDC is planned under the Aber Project to streamline cross-border payments between Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Saudi Arabia joint CBDC with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will not be available for the public, says an executive at SEMA or the Saudi Arabian Central bank. The update today comes a few days after the central banks published an update on the CBDC project dubbed “Aber.” The project was aimed at enabling the participating banks to study how they can improve cross border payments through the use of digital currency and also blockchain.
Saudi Arabia joint CBDC is not for individual
The clarification today was made by the SEMA’s deputy Governor for Development and Technology, Ziad Al Yousef. According to him, the Saudi Arabia joint CBCD will only be available for all the participating members (banks) of the Aber project to use. The wholesale digital currency will enable Saudi Arabia banks to process both cross-border and domestic payment among themselves and other financial institutions in the partnering country UAE, Al Arabiya TV reported.
The project was initiated to enable the development of a more efficient system for payment in order to streamline cross-border payments between financial institutions from the respective countries. In this course, the banks mulled blockchain and digital currency. Not just as a viable means for facilitating cross-border transactions, the Saudi Arabia joint CBDC was also viewed as huge advancement over centralized payment methods, especially when considering architectural resilience.
Bank digital currencies
Many central banks are now nurturing the idea of launching a digital currency, while some already have initiated efforts to launching one, especially China. While still under the pilot, the Chinese have been used to process millions of transactions. Recently, the authorities in Suzhou announced plans to gift the Chinese digital currency to residents. Already, the province of Shenzhen gave away $1.5 million worth of digital yuan to residents.
