Bank Of Thailand Plans Digital Payments System Prototype

The Bank of Thailand plans to work on a new payment system for businesses using Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), according to a press release, which will be a step toward readying the business sector for the digital age.

The release says the step will help CBDC reach wider audiences, beginning with corporate entities.

The platform will enable businesses to access better payment efficiency, including more flexibility for fund transfers and faster payments between suppliers. After a feasibility study by the Bank of Thailand, the CBDC will be integrated so as to implement the new payments system.

The CBDC will be integrated with Siam Cement Public Company’s financial management and procurement systems and its suppliers developed by Digital Ventures Company. The project will begin in July of this year, according to the bank, and will be done by the end of the year. Then Bank of Thailand will publish a project summary.

The new project will build on knowledge from the Bank’s Project Inthanon, which is the collaborative effort the Bank of Thailand had with eight leading financial institutions to study and develop the ways to move money with CBDC. That project was completed in January of this year, with its final task being the prototype for cross-border pay technology worked on with the help of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

In the future, HKMA, the Bank of Thailand and other entities will work on more uses for CBDC in cross-border transfers, the press release states.

The development of CBDC is a project undertaken by many banks nowadays, and the key could lie in public-private partnerships, according to Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, deputy division chief in the Monetary and Capital Markets Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Those partnerships could result in less costly alternatives to help make new stablecoins, partially backed by private entities.