- Montenegro Prime minister announced CBDC pilot project in collaboration with Ripple.
- The CEO of Ripple and Vice President James Wallis met with the nation’s Prime minister at WEF, Davos.
- Ripple will collaborate with the nation’s central bank to develop the CBDC.
In its pursuit of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the Baltic nation of Montenegro has enlisted the aid of Ripple, the crypto firm specializing in international money transfers. Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dritan Abazovi met with Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and VP of central bank interactions and CBDCs James Wallis, at the World Economic Forum 2023 in Davos.
The topic of discussion was “the development of a payment infrastructure that would provide greater financial accessibility and inclusion,” as tweeted by the prime minister. In a follow-up Tweet, Abazovi elaborated that the government was collaborating with the central bank to create a new digital currency for national financial transactions.
Due to the absence of a national currency in Montenegro, the new digital currency’s specifications remain unclear. Despite neither being a member of the European Union nor a part of the Eurozone, the country has been using the euro since its introduction in 2002. Montenegro has been trying to join the European Union since 2008, but membership has not been approved.
Since it is one of the freest economies in the Balkans, Montenegro does not have any restrictions on using cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, including purchasing real estate. As long as a licensed notary sanctions the transaction, anyone interested in purchasing property in Montenegro with cryptocurrency encounters no barriers.
Meanwhile, Ripple has been ramping up its efforts to support the creation of central bank digital currency (CBDC) since March 2021, when a private version of the XRP Ledger was piloted. Ripple was recently chosen as a founding member of the Digital Dollar Project’s “Technical Sandbox Program” last year, investigating the possible technical and commercial implications of a CBDC in the United States.
In addition, in February of 2022, the company joined the European think tank Digital Euro Association in an effort to promote the expansion of CBDCs and the Digital Euro.
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