Brazil’s Central Bank considering the development of a CBDC

The Banco Central do Brazil (Central Bank of Brazil) is seriously weighing the benefits of a Central Bank Digital Currency

Reports from Brazil show that the Central Bank is in the early stages of laying the foundations for developing a CBDC. This comes after an official announcement revealed the bank had already established a committee whose primary objective would be to study the crypto space in the country.

The team will reportedly have 12 members in an intergovernmental group whose focus will be to thoroughly evaluate how the CBDC can be integrated with the national payments ecosystem. In addition, the group has also been tasked to determine the impact CBDCs could have on both society and the country’s economy.

Past reports indicate that the nation spends about R$90 billion ($16 billion) to ensure it has a functional supply of paper money in circulation. This sum translates to about 2% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The Central Bank formed the group so that it could assess the potential of a CBDC option and calculate how much money would be saved by implementing it. This will help the bank to gauge how and whether it’ll be beneficial to the economy.

In a statement, Rafael Sarres de Almeida, Information Technology officer from the Central Bank of Brazil, explained, “The subject of digital currencies addressed by central banks has been on the research agenda of many central banks for some time. However, this year, there was a greater focus on a more practical approach”.

Sarres further added that China was already in the closing stage of its digital currency discussions.

As noted by Sarres, Brazil will be looking to join China and other nations that have plans for similar financial projects. It is still too early to speculate how this will work out, but most factors show it is a positive trajectory.

Early this year in May, American currency exchange and remittance network Ripple met with officials from the Central Bank of Brazil in what was a closed-door meeting.

The bank reported that its president, Robert Neto, had a video conference session with four executives from Ripple Labs, including the CEO Brad Garlinghouse.  Little is known about the proceedings of this meeting, but it was labelled as a discussion of “institutional matters”.