The pilot will involve bank employees and nearby businesses, despite the project's delay from last year. Every installment supplier has sent off its own application.



This month, a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project in a regulatory sandbox will be launched by the Bank of Thailand. According to local media, there will be three payment providers participating. Up to 10,000 people will participate in the project, which will run through August.


The Thai central bank will collaborate on the project with the Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri), Siam Commercial Bank, and 2C2P, a payments service provider based in Singapore. An app with a wallet and a QR code scanner has been made available to selected users by each of these organizations.


Krungsri will enroll up to 2,000 staff individuals to take part in the task, alongside around 100 shippers situated around the bank's base camp. The project will be extended to its Ploenchit branch as well. Sam Tanskul, the managing director of Krungsri Innovate, stated:


“The bank needs to determine a strategy to differentiate retail CBDC from [its] PromptPay service.”


The pilot run by Siam Commercial Bank will be similar to Krungsri's, with employees and nearby businesses participating.


Related: Thailand's National Bank Eyes DeFi Use Cases for Its Computerized Baht


The pilot was reported in August and was initially booked to send off in 2022. The project has been referred to as a "pilot to learn" rather than a "pilot launch" by the Bank of Thailand. A CBDC has not been officially announced by the central bank.


In 2018, the Bank of Thailand made the announcement that it was developing a wholesale CBDC. It took part in the Bank for Global Repayments' mBridge cross-line installment endlessly project,project, Inthanon-Lion Rock,, with the Hong Kong Money Related Power.


Companies that issue investment tokens were exempt from paying value-added tax and corporate income tax in March. According to a government spokesperson, investment tokens will generate $3.7 billion over the next two years, despite Thailand's potential loss of approximately $1 billion in revenue.

(DEREK ANDERSEN, CoinTelegraph, 2023)