Japan Credit Bureau will the testing of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) infrastructure in collaboration with IDEMIA and Softspace.
The (CBDC) infrastructure testing has begun, according to the Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), a Japanese equivalent of global payment systems like Visa or Mastercard. The project, which the Bank of Japan is now testing, will presumably prepare the payments platform for a nationwide CBDC (BoJ).
The infrastructure project, dubbed JCBDC and publicized by the business in local media, aims to modify the JCB’s current credit card infrastructure for CBDC payments. JCB will work with Malaysian Softspace and French facial recognition technology firm IDEMIA to develop the platform.
The platform will include three main components: a touch payment solution, the creation and distribution of plastic cards for CBDC, and a simulation of the actual operating environment of CBDC. In the later rounds of testing, JCB also intends to modify QR codes and mobile payment tools.
By the end of 2022, JCB intends to create a payment solution, and by the end of March 2023, it plans to begin testing it in actual stores.
In October 2020, the BOJ released a three-phase trial plan for its CBDC. This year should see the start of the trial’s second phase, which will examine the technical aspects of issuing the digital yen. The BoJ governor asserts that the central bank will not act alone in deciding whether to introduce the digital yen by 2026.
The start of the project and the potential scope of its implementation remain uncertain. The former head of the BOJ’s financial settlement division issued a warning in January against incorporating the digital yen into the nation’s monetary policy.
JCB is not a novice to technological advancements; in 2020, it began a trial project with Fujitsu Laboratories for a blockchain-based digital identification interoperability system.