SAMA Works On CBDC With The Help Of Other Fintechs And Banks

The Saudi Central Bank is testing a local wholesale digital currency with the help of local banks and fintechs.

Several central banks worldwide are also working on CBDC projects, which are part of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency’s (Sama) ongoing research and testing on CBDC.

During this phase, the project will look at how CBDC affects the economy, how ready it is for the market, and how a payment system based on CBDC could be used in ways that are fast and reliable.

Before moving on to the next phase, the central bank also wants to get a handle on policy, legal, and regulatory issues.

The Governor of Sama, Fahad Almubarak, says it has worked with local banks, fintechs, and other market players as well as third-party consulting and technology providers to learn more about how CBDC works and test different design options.

Together with the Central Bank of the UAE, Sama ran the CBDC experiment “Project Aber” successfully in 2019 to see if distributed ledger technology could help make cross-border payments more manageable.

Sama says that no decision has been made about bringing CBDC to the Kingdom, but the organization is still looking into the benefits and possible risks.