After being suspended throughout the year, the Real Digital tests were confirmed by the Central Bank. The official announcement of the tests of Brazilian digital currency (CBDC) It was done this Thursday, 09. Operations in the execution laboratory were carried out for four months in partnership with Febraban (Brazilian Federation of Banks) to identify all digital infrastructure required for implementation.
For the project to become a reality, companies pre-selected by the Lift Challenge will participate in the tests until January. After, Some tests will be carried out to evaluate the final effectiveness of the experiment. Among the group of chosen organizations are representatives of banks, crypto protocol and cryptocurrency companies.
The presidency and board of directors of Banco do Brasil demonstrated that cryptocurrencies were born to serve a modern society, who want faster payment transactions, simple and cheap. Like this, the “tokenized” economy and the extraction of value in digital assets are trends that can no longer be ignored by banks.
How Real Digital will work?
Brazilian digital currency is a project that, in summary, represents money in banknotes in a virtual version. With the new, the user will have access to payments and purchases in their digital wallet, data monetization and Open Finance.
Digitization is a type of transaction that promises to be faster, fraud safe and usable in any country, being easily transferred. To the bank, nonetheless, the biggest benefit is reducing the printing of paper money, which has a significant cost.
Real Oficial will be integrated into several application projects such as Decentralized Finance (DeFI), Delivery Against Payment Application (PAD), Payment Against Payment (PVP), Internet of Things (IGT) and other payment solutions.
Scalable testing and deadlines
The issuance of the digital Real has already been studied by Banco do Brasil since 2020. Nonetheless, The launch of the experiment is scheduled for 2023 still in scalable testing phases.
I.e, as soon as finished, the Real Digital will first cover only a portion of the population, starting with some groups, regions and values. Then, after, the service will be released to more people and limits. Originally, The Central Bank's forecast was to begin testing between March and July.
Although, the initiative was suspended due to a strike by bank employees, held in April. Now, the estimate is that access to Real Digital will be available for circulation among the entire population only in 2024.
