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Iran to start public digital currency pilot on Kish Island
Iran’s central bank is expected to launch a pilot for its digital rial, enabling cashless transactions for bank customers.
The Central Bank of Will (CBI), also known as Markazi Bank, has announced the operational phase of its digital currency known as digital rial in a bid to modernize and simplify national transactions.
In a press release seen by crypto.news, the central bank says the pilot is scheduled for July, allowing bank customers and tourists on Kish Island to make purchases and transfer funds using digital wallets and QR codes. The CBI states that the digital rial will increase the resilience and efficiency of the region’s payments infrastructure, creating “new business models, especially in e-commerce and the digital economy”.
Iran’s central bank has been testing its digital currency since 2022 in a limited pilot phase, which began in June 2023. The CBI says its state-controlled digital currency “not only increases payment security, but is also much more simpler than traditional card payment methods.”
In February, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions imposed against a network of entities accused of facilitating the “illegal export of goods and technology from more than two dozen US companies to end users in Iran”.
Among those sanctioned was Iran-based Informatics Services Corporation (ISC), a subsidiary of the Central Bank of Iran, responsible for developing the central bank’s digital currency platform (CBD). OFAC stated that the ISC was sanctioned for having “materially supported, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support, or goods or services to or in support” of the CBI.
Like crypto.news reportedthe ISC started working on the digital rial in 2018 using Hyperledger Fabrica blockchain framework hosted by the Linux Foundation.