The United Arab Emirates are close to completing the first phase in the central bank digital currency program whose efforts in doing so far exceed that of other nations. The estimated time that it would take to complete it is 12 to 15 months, according to the Central Bank of UAE. The announcement made this Thursday reminds us that there are 3 main phases in total that have to be completed in order to officially launch the CBDC.
Khaled Mohamed Balama of the bank noted that the CBDC will bring the attention of the global financial industry at the gate of the country and establish the United Arab Emirates as one of the leading global financial hubs. In his own words, his nation is looking forward to the countless opportunities that lay ahead.
The launch of the CBDC will be conducted in three phases. The first phase is the soft launch of mBridge which is conducted in collaboration with Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the central banks of the UAE, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China. With this phase, there will be a goes to make cross-border CBDC payments.
The second phase, or pillar, will be a proof-of-concept for CBDC bridges with India. And finally, the third pillar with start working on a proo-of-concept for local CBDC transactions on both retail and wholesale.
The bank also has disclosed that it will partner up with G42 Cloud and New York-based blockchain company R3, in order to build a better infrastructure and tech base for the CBDC.
