Peru will partner with India, Singapore, and Hong Kong to develop a CBDC.

The president of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, Julio Velarde, announced that they will be entering the global race to develop a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The central bank president stated that Peru would partner with the central banks of countries more advanced in their development of CBDCs, including India, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Julio Velarde thinks the payments system will completely change in eight years. 

At the Annual Conference of Executives (CADE) with business leaders in Lima on Nov. 16, central bank’s president Julio Velarde said, “I think the payment system we are going to have eight years from now in the world is going to be completely different from the current one… Even the financial system will probably be quite different.” He stated that Peru would partner with the central banks of countries more advanced in their development of CBDCs. A CBDC is a digital form of a country’s fiat currency, issued and controlled by the respective nation’s central bank. 

Nearly 87 countries are now researching a CBDC.

“We won’t be the first because we don’t have the resources to be first and face those risks,” Velarde said, talking about CBDCs, “But we don’t want to fall behind. We are at least at the same level or maybe even further ahead than similarly-sized countries, although behind Mexico and Brazil.” According to Atlantic Council, 87 countries, representing more than 90% of global GDP, are researching a CBDC, and seven have launched one. Comparatively, in May 2020, only 35 countries were considering developing a CBDC. As for Peru’s upcoming CBDC development partners, the Reserve Bank of India plans to launch a trial implementation of the digital rupee before the end of the year.