Mastercard initiates Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) testing platform

The platform enables the simulation of issuance, distribution, and exchange of CBDCs between banks, financial service providers, and consumers. Central banks, commercial banks, and tech and advisory firms are invited to partner with Mastercard to assess CBDC tech designs, validate use cases and evaluate interoperability with existing payment rails available at the moment for consumers and businesses.

CBDCs are designed to be equivalent in value to a nation’s paper currency and subject to the same government-backed guarantees. In addition to printing money, central banks can issue CBDCs as a digital representation of a country’s fiat currency.

If you are interested to learn more about CBDC, check out our series on this topic here.