Kazakhstan Plans Phased Rollout of CBDC between 2023-25

The Central Bank of Kazakhstan announced that it will work on deploying its in-house central bank digital currency (CBDC) available as early as 2023 and will expand on the project until the end of 2025.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) has found it to be feasible to launch its in-house CBDC – the digital tenge. The NBK revealed its findings after it completed the second phase of testing. The results of the second round of testing of the platform and the need for a digital version of its currency have been presented in a whitepaper published by the regulator. In October, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced that the country’s CBDC would be integrated with its BNB Chain – the blockchain built by Binance.

Kazakhstan has been primarily driven to conduct feasibility studies for a CBDC given its potential to improve financial inclusion, promote competition and innovation in the payment industry and increase the country’s global competitiveness according to reports by Cointelegraph. A loose translation of the white paper says:

Taking into account the need for technological improvements, infrastructure preparation, development of an operating model and a regulatory framework, it is recommended to ensure a phased implementation over three years.

The third phase of implementation and testing of the CBDC will commence in January and continue through 2023. During this time, developers plan to introduce a solution for the commercial application of the CBDC. A fourth phase, scheduled to end in December 2025 will see the NBK invite more participants to the platform and will launch additional services.

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