Reza Baqir, the governor of the central bank of Pakistan, has revealed that they’ve started analyzing CBDCs. The SW Asian country has taken a look at how China and other countries are toying with the concept of CBDC and has divulged that a big announcement regarding this will arrive later this year.
Baqir spoke with CNN about the financial advances registered by the country and what the future may hold for it, including the digital rupee.
“We’re studying that [a CBDC] very carefully. We think that some countries like China are already showing the way,” he commented.
He also declared that a state-backed digital currency would help the country in two ways:
Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world with 224 million citizens. The governor highlighted this as playing a role in making the country a great one for fintech companies that look to disrupt the financial industry.
“[Pakistan] is a market where people are generally tech-savvy and it’s a market that’s waiting to burst as far as digitization is concerned.”
The central bank of Pakistan has been working on digitizing the payments system as a way to promote financial inclusion, such as creating Raast, in collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates, an instant digital payments system that connects merchants, businesses, and government entities and permitting them to make instant payments with their smartphones.
Despite these efforts, Pakistan continues to have a ban on digital currencies, with Arif Alvi, the president of the country, encouraging investment in blockchain technology, but not in digital currency, similar to the policy of China.