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- Qatar is planning to act in tandem with other countries thinking on a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
- The organization has begun exploring several initiatives that would be more specified in the coming months, highlights Qatar’s Central Bank’s Head of Fintech.
- Various countries globally are vehemently thinking about CBDCs, with some already starting to establish them and some who are still a bit indecisive.
Qatar is another country to enter the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) space now, as it recently highlighted its plans on it.
Is Qatar bracing itself for CBDCs?
Qatar’s central bank is planning the digitalization of most of its products, which involves studying and potentially developing and launching a CBDC.
Alanood Abdullah Al Muftah, the QCB’s head of FinTech, expressed her views while talking to a local newspaper at the 8th Doha Islamic Finance Conference. She highlighted the bank’s new and digitalized direction. And that the organization has begun exploring several initiatives that would be more specified in the coming months.
According to her, they are trying to study the varied aspects and verticals of fintech and set their direction. And that every central bank should study digital banks, considering their emerging importance in the market globally.
She further cited the organization’s intentions to give thoughts to a central bank digital currency, which is in harmony with other central banks. However, Al Muftah noted that the QCB is a bit far from launching such a product. And currently, the bank is still researching how the monetary landscape would be impacted by CBDC.
Furthermore, The COO and Digital Officer of the Dukhan Bank, Narayanan Srinivasan, also opined during the conference that his bank is willing to set up a digital bank in Qatar. And they plan to utilize blockchain technology for some payments services.
Various countries and central banks have been thinking about developing their CBDCs. China is one of the countries among the global leaders to work rapidly towards a CBDC as it has created a Digital Yuan pilot program.
Recently, Ghana, the West African country, also signified its thoughts on launching it’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The Central Bank of Ghana highlighted the significant factor of its CBDC would be inclusivity.
The Bank of Canada also recently collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to work on a twelve-month research project that would focus on the design of a Central Bank Digital Currency.
Whereas the US is still studying the Digital Dollar, the Federal reserve highlighted the fors and againsts of a US CBDC via a report earlier in the year. It is to look forward to whether the concept of CBDCs prove to be efficient for the various global economies.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
