BSP concludes testing for its own digital currency

THE BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) has completed the testing phase for Project Agila, its pilot project for a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

In a statement on Thursday, the BSP said it concluded the testing for Project Aguila, along with other participating financial institutions.

“Wholesale CBDCs are expected to enhance liquidity management, reduce settlement risks, and support financial stability,” BSP Governor Eli M. Remolona, Jr. said.

“Insights from this project will guide the BSP’s CBDC roadmap. Our goal is to leverage new technologies to further enhance the efficiency and resilience of the national payment system,” he added.

The project aims to “allow financial institutions to transfer funds to each other even during off-business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays.”

“These transactions can safely be supported by open-source distributed ledger technology through the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.”

The BSP earlier said that the project will likely be launched by 2029, still within the six-year term of Mr. Remolona.

Since 2021, the central bank has been reviewing use cases for wholesale CBDCs.

“Project Agila is a proof-of-concept of the BSP’s CBDC at the wholesale level. The evaluation with financial institutions covered functional, performance, security, exploratory, end-to-end and programmability testing,” the central bank said.

The project also seeks to “explore and test the potential of CBDCs, while evaluating if this technology can help improve the country’s large-value payment system.”

The BSP earlier said it is open to studying retail CBDCs but does not see the need for it just yet.

CBDCs are a form of digital money denominated in the national unit of account and are direct liabilities of the central bank.

Wholesale CBDCs may be issued to commercial banks and other financial institutions to settle interbank payments, securities transactions, and cross-border payments, among others. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson