Brazil’s Central Bank Tasks Group With Laying Out Road Map to Digital Currency Issuance

Brazil, home to South America’s largest economy and a bullish-on-fintech financial bureaucracy, is studying the benefits and challenges of issuing a central digital currency (CBDC).

• Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) established an intergovernmental CBDC study group on Aug. 20.
• The 12-member team is tasked with investigating CBDC security risks, economic implications and societal benefits against Brazil's existing payments landscape.
• The team will also evaluate CBDC issuance and even propose an issuance model for Brazil. A final report is due in to BCB officials in 180 days.
• CBDC may "improve the current model of commercial transactions between people and even between countries," BCB said in a press statement, calling CBDC issuance "eventual."
• Brazil's monetary policy makers are already moving to digitize payments in South America's largest economy. Pix, a central bank-run instant payments system, is coming online in November.

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