When it comes to the adoption of central bank digital currency, every week a new country is expressing its interests in the adoption of CBDC. The countries are constantly moving towards the central bank digital currency (CBDC) due to its potential and demand.
Blockchain technology is constantly gaining ground and the countries are adopting it for the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
According to the latest reports, Israel has also made an announcement in regards to the adoption of the CBDC technology. The Bank of Israel has revealed that it had already started working on the central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Now that the Bank of Israel is done with the completion of the CBDC, the next step is to run it through the testing phase. The Bank of Israel has revealed that it is going to take the digital shekel through the testing and pilot phase.
The announcement in regards to the launch of the pilot testing for digital shekel was made by the Israel Bank on Monday, June 21, 2021. Andrew Abir, the deputy governor of the Bank of Israel was the one to break the news officially.
Andrew Abir has reported that they have already started working on the pilot testing of the digital shekel. Abir reportedly shared this information during the Fair Value Forum conference that was for IDC Herzliya.
Abir stated that initially, he was not optimistic or had many hopes for the digital shekel. However, he has still given the go to the bank for the issuance of the central bank digital currency. Now the challenge is to take the digital currency through the pilot testing phase.
Abir stated that as per him, it is too early for the country to move towards digital shekel adoption. As per him, he had given an estimation for the adoption of the digital currency, which was five years. He even added that in the next five years, the adoption level for digital currency in the country would reach 20%.
However, as the country is constantly making developments in the digital currency sector, it is becoming evident that the adoption of CBDC would be much faster than expected.
He stated that given the current adoption level of digital currencies and people’s acceptance of the digital shekel, he has a new estimate. Abir stated that he is confident that the adoption level of the digital shekel in the next five years would be close to 50%.
So far, it is only Abir who has confirmed the news around the launch of the digital shekel. The Bank of Israel is yet to make an announcement involving the launch of the pilot phase for the digital shekel.
