“The BoT and the participating banks will collaboratively design and develop a proof-of-concept prototype for wholesale funds transfer by issuing wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (Wholesale CBDC).
“The prototype will be built on Corda, a DLT platform developed by R3,” announced a Bank of Thailand release issued on Tuesday (Aug 21). (See release here.)
The project, called ‘Project Inthanon’ and led by the BoT, is a collaboration of technology partners R3 and eight participating banks, the release noted.
The participating banks were identified as: Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, Kasikornbank, Siam Commercial Bank, Thanachart Bank, Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) PCL and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd (HSBC).
“The outcome and insights from Project Inthanon will contribute to the design of Thailand’s future financial market infrastructure. This is in line with similar projects embarked upon by other central banks such as the Bank of Canada, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore,” said the release.
“In addition to Project Inthanon, the BoT is conducting a DLT proof of concept for scriptless government savings bond sale to improve operational efficiency,” it added.
Project Inthanon Phase 1 currently underway involves the designing, developing and testing a domestic wholesale funds transfer by using wholesale CBDC.
“Key payment functionalities such as liquidity saving mechanism and risk management will also be developed and tested during this phase,” said the release.
“Project Inthanon Phase 1 is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2019 after which the BOT will publish a project summary accordingly,” it added.
“Building upon the findings and outcomes from Phase 1, the project participants aim to further develop the capabilities of the prototype for broader functions including third party funds transfer and cross-border funds transfer,” the BoT concluded.