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National Bank of Georgia to Test CBDC Next Year

The pilot program will initially focus on retail payments.

Tbilisi, Georgia's capital
Tbilisi, Georgia's capital

The National Bank of Georgia, which in May said it was exploring the possible development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), plans to launch a pilot program next year.

  • Initial testing will be aimed at retail use, Interfax reported, citing Papuna Lezhava, a vice governor at the central bank.
  • A digital lari is not crypto currency, but is the evolution of cash, Lezhava said. It will improve the efficiency of the payments system and broaden financial inclusion.
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See also: Republic of Georgia’s Central Bank Is Researching a Digital Currency

Sheldon Reback

Sheldon Reback is CoinDesk editorial's Regional Head of Europe. Before joining the company, he spent 26 years as an editor at Bloomberg News, where he worked on beats as diverse as stock markets and the retail industry as well as covering the dot-com bubble of 2000-2002. He managed the Bloomberg Terminal's main news page and also worked on a global project to produce short, chart-based stories across the newsroom. He previously worked as a journalist for a number of technology magazines in Hong Kong. Sheldon has a degree in industrial chemistry and an MBA. He owns ether and bitcoin below CoinDesk's notifiable limit.

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