BoT: Thais will see digital currency in the next 3-5 years

There continues to be great attention given to the concept of digital currency.  In Thailand, there has been an interesting movement with the announcement of “Project Inthanon”, a wholesale central bank digital currency initiated by the BoT in August last year.  It is expected to be used within the start of 2019. 

Despite this movement, BoT Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob says having digital currency replace cash in Thailand will take at least 3-5 years.  

The BoT governor also gave a comment on International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s call for central banks around the world to replace cash with digital currencies by November 2018.  Veerathai says the challenges for this transition in Thailand is the difficulty in developing the country’s technology, creating correct understanding among citizens and the complexity of the financial system in the kingdom.      

In addition to this, Veerathai believes having an efficient digital payment system in place will help reduce the use of cash.  This would just be as effective as having a digital currency.