Uruguay's central bank plans to test a digital currency

Uruguay's central bank, Banco Central del Uruguay (BCU), now also appears to be working to issue its own digital currency.

According to a Central Bank announcement, a select group of users is currently working to test a smartphone app for capital transfer. The president of the central bank, Mario Bergara, said that the digital currency would function like cash and allow cash transfers between individuals.

According to a report by the Latin American Herald Tribune, he further outlined this idea. Correspondingly, it is not a question of using the smartphone for money transfers, as it is already practiced today, but rather to store invoices there and pass them from one user to another.

Whether the digital currency is to be built on a blockchain-based platform is not yet clear. A start date has also not yet been announced, even if Bergara assures that the start of the pilot project is no longer remote from the future. Only certain technological aspects of the program would have to be finalized. This is a process of trial and failure, in order to extremely end up on a promising path.

Last month, central banks around the world had launched their own digital treaties, but also balanced the use of distributed ledger technology independently. While these financial institutions are also the Central Bank of India, who want to test a digital rupee, as well as the Federal Reserve, which considers an implementation of the DLT possible.