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Mauritius plans to issue digital currency

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 06 Dec 2019

The Bank of Mauritius is considering introducing a digital currency, according to its governor Yandraduth Googoolye.

Googoolye said he had already started engaging with some international institutions about the currency to be used for retail payments, similar to Tunisia's issuance of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The announcement did not come as a surprise to Suyash Sumaroo, co-founder of Horizon Africa, a blockchain start-up in Mauritius.

"Over the past two to three years, there has been a lot of focus on fintech and blockchain technology from the Mauritian government and the private sector," Sumaroo said. "I believe that there will be more large-scale projects of this nature which will help the country and region develop."

The island nation has seen various fintech and blockchain-related developments with government backing in recent times. They range from introducing regulatory measures to ease its ascendance to a fintech hub, to sandbox legislation for blockchain technology companies to develop and commercialise applications.

Michal Szymanski, CEO of Mauritius Africa FinTech Hub, said he was pleased that the plan to issue a digital currency  was made public. "In other words, we are moving away from talking about it to actioning it."

What are CBCCs?

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland, often referred to as The Central Bank of Central Banks, in September released a report titled “Central Bank Cryptocurrencies".

The report set out to explain what central bank crypto-currencies (CBCCs) are. The taxonomy is based on four key properties: issuer, central bank or other; form, electronic or physical; accessibility, universal or limited; and transfer mechanism, centralised or decentralised.

The BIS report distinguishes between two potential types of CBCC, both of which are electronic: central bank-issued and peer-to-peer. One is accessible to the general public while the other is available only to financial institutions.


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