National and international companies, including Visa, Microsoft, and Santander, will participate in the Brazilian central bank’s upcoming digital currency pilot project (CBDC).
The central bank released the final list of CBDC pilot participants on May 24. Participants were selected from 36 bids submitted by single corporations and consortia, “totalling more than 100 institutions.”
The total number of participants is 14, although some represent business groups. Microsoft, a tech giant based in the United States, Banco Inter, a Brazilian bank, and 7COMm, a digital technology corporation, are three of the 14 participants.
Visa, Santander, and several Brazilian finance institutions, including Ita Unibanco, BTG Pactual, and Banco Bradesco, are also participants.
In the current phase of the real digital pilot, the central bank will evaluate the platform’s privacy and programmability through a single use case: a delivery versus payment protocol for federal public securities.
In 2022, the Brazilian CBDC pilot was formally announced. The value of digital real would be pegged to the real, the national fiat currency. It would have a limited supply and be issued gradually.
The largest country in Latin America, with a population of 214 million, remains an attractive location for global crypto companies. In January, Mastercard and Binance collaborated to introduce a cryptocurrency prepaid card in the country.
Since March, Coinbase has partnered with local payment processors to offer cryptocurrency purchases and local currency deposits and withdrawals.
On May 19, the central bank granted Latam Gateway a license to operate as a payment institution and electronic money issuer. Latam Gateway is the payment provider for Binance in Brazil.
