Eastern Caribbean Central Bank’s DCASH Digital Currency Official Launch!
According to Cointelegraph, a cryptocurrency media outlet on the 1st, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) launched a regional central bank digital currency in partnership with the Caribbean fintech team Bit.
The ECCB, a major financial institution in the Eastern Caribbean monetary alliance, launched DCash.
ECCB announced the launch of CBDC (central bank (government) digital currency) for the region through a media event held on the 31st (local time).
‘D Cash’ is the digital version of the Eastern Caribbean Dollar and is the official currency of the eight allied nations.
However, according to the announcement that day, D-Cash is currently only available in four monetary union member states: Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua/Barbuda, and Saint Lucia.
Through this launch, ECCB announced its CBDC plan for the first time in March 2019, and after two years of development, the project was finished.
As part of its inauguration, ECCB President Timothy Antoine also demonstrated real-time trading between D-Cash for the first time ever. He celebrates the launch at ECCB headquarters in St. Kitts, and is known to have sent 100 D Cash dollars each to D Cash wallet holders in three countries.
At the inaugural announcement event held that day, Governor Timothy Antoine said about the central bank’s decision to cooperate with BIT for the CBDC project, saying, “The ECCB’s choice of partnership with BIT is the company’s shared values of citizen empowerment through financial inclusion. “Because we respected and understood the pursuits peculiar to emerging countries,” he said.
“The past two years have been very cooperative, and Bit and ECCB have learned a lot of lessons that can be exchanged with each other in the process.”
In addition, to Brian Popelka, CEO of Beat, D Cash is a currency union’s’game changer’, adding that CBDC is designed to be interoperable with digital currencies around the world.
Meanwhile, in other CBDC news related to the Caribbean, Jamaica’s central bank is developing its own CBDC in partnership with the Irish-based technology company’e-Currency Mint’.