The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has finalized plans to roll out digital currency across several Caribbean countries. The project is currently being test-run on a pilot basis and is being embraced by stakeholders across the region. The pilot program is called the ECCB Digital EC Currency (DXCD) Project.
Research Officer, Strategic Planning and Projects Department at the ECCB, Kieran St. Omer, said the digital currency will be the digital version of the EC dollar and as such a legal tender. The governor of the ECCB in St. Kitts, Timothy Antoine, told reporters at the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) that the digital currency is not a crypto-currency in any way and must not be confused with cryptos.
Both St. Omer and Antoine made it obvious that “we need to be clear from the outset that we are not speaking about crypto-currencies” such as Bitcoin. “What we are speaking of is a currency issued by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank in the very same way that we issue our current polymer notes at this time. One is physical cash, the other is digital cash.”
The pilot project is expected to run for four or six months and come to an end in 2020. All the Caribbean countries which have chosen to be part of the program will take part in the pilot run. Some of the countries that are currently part of the digital currency plan are –
- Dominica
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Grenada
- St. Lucia
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Montserrat
For us to get a good pilot program we need a combination of banks, credit unions, mobile wallet providers, we are going to need merchants like supermarkets and of course we want a population size to be able to have enough….to test.
Timothy Antoine: Governor of the ECCB
Antoine said the first pilot phase will take place in the Windward and Leeward Islands, and then expanded to other countries once it becomes feasible at a later stage and the various governments consent to the roll-out.
According to St. Omer, the digital currency will be highly secure and used for payments within the ECCU territory. The pilot project according to the senior bank official involves creating value in banking and protecting customer data among other things. She said users will get real-time payment processing and there may not even be any need to use a physical bank again.
“The ECCB responsibilities are not just financial stability but also we are also interested and charged with economic growth and development of the ECCU,” St. Omer said. “Blockchain technology is one of the key benefits of data handling and trust. It helps in intermediation and can provide high-value opportunities in retail banking, fraud prevention and risk scoring of customers.”
If this project scales through, it will make the DXCD the first legal tender digital currency to be issued by a central bank on blockchain technology.
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