Malaysia has joined a growing cadre of nations that are exploring the value of central bank digital currency (CBDC) research and development.
Malaysia's central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, told Bloomberg news agency on Jan. 17 that while no decision has yet been made on how exactly to proceed with CBDC, it has focused on CBDC research "through proof of concept and experimentation to enhance our technical and policy capabilities."
He also stated that the purported reason for the current research effort was to ensure readiness to launch a CBDC program "should the need for a CBDC issue arise in the future."
In 2021. Malaysia partnered with South Africa, Australia and Southeast Asian neighbor Singapore to develop a CBDC proof-of-concept pilot project called Project Dunbar .
Project Dunbar used the blockchain platforms Corda and Quorum from r3 and ConsenSys, respectively, to demonstrate various blockchain-based cross-border transfer capabilities. In particular, his goal was to show how blockchain technology can "eliminate the need for intermediaries and reduce transaction time and costs."
More and more nations are exploring how a CBDC program would work in their jurisdictions. China is by far the largest country currently running a CBDC pilot program, called Digital Yuan, and the mobile app has already had more than 20 million downloads since January 4. China plans to launch the program and allow international visitors to access Digital Yuan from their passports during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing next month.
