In a major step towards digitisation, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is working with Soramitsu, a Japanese blockchain technology developer, to pilot a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the country this year, reported Nikkei Asia on Tuesday.
As per the report, the digital Pakistani rupee pilot will be run on Soramitsu’s CBDC platform with funding from the Global South Future-Oriented Co-Creation Project of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
“Many transactions in rural areas are cash-based, even for wage payments, and the rate of people with bank accounts is low,” Masato Toriya, associate professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and specialist in Pakistan, told Nikkei Asia.
As per the report, the CBDC intends to address the problem of high cash distribution costs.
Soramitsu, which developed Cambodia’s Bakong digital currency, says the Pakistan initiative - covering 250 million people and a $400 billion economy - is its largest to date.
The Tokyo-based company is also developing offline CBDC capabilities to enable smartphone transactions without internet access, positioning the initiative as a potential model for other developing economies.
Last month, SBP Governor Jameel Ahmad informed that the central bank is preparing to launch a pilot for a digital currency and is finalising legislation to regulate virtual assets.
Speaking at the Reuters NEXT Asia summit in Singapore, Ahmad said Pakistan was “building up our capacity on the SBP digital currency” and hoped to roll out a pilot soon.
He added that a new law would “lay down the foundations for the licensing and regulation” of the virtual assets sector and that the SBP was already in touch with some tech partners.
In recent months, Pakistan has ramped up efforts to modernise its financial system with the establishment of the government-backed Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), set up in March to drive virtual asset adoption.
The PCC is exploring bitcoin mining using surplus energy and has appointed Binance founder Changpeng Zhao as a strategic adviser and plans to establish a state-run bitcoin reserve.
It has also held talks with US-based crypto firms, including the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial.
In May, the SBP clarified that virtual assets were not illegal. However, it advised financial institutions not to engage with them until a formal licensing framework was in place.
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