The Bank of Thailand (BOT), R3 in collaboration with local financial institutions have launched Project Inthanon to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The banks to participate in this project include Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai, Bank of Ayudhya, Kasikornbank, Siam Commercial, Thanachart, Standard Chartered (Thai), and HSBC.
The Participating banks in conjunction with the Bank of Thailand (BOT) will design and develop a proof-of-concept prototype for wholesale funds transfer by issuing the wholesale CBDC. The prototype will be built on a DLT platform known as Corda developed by R3.
The project which was named after the highest mountain in Thailand- Inthanon will contribute to the design of the nation’s future financial market infrastructure.
Key payment functionalities such as liquidity saving mechanism and risk management will be developed and tested during this phase.
It is expected that by the first quarter in 2019, the first phase of the project would have been completed after which the BOT will publish a project summary.
BOT is clearly inspired as it says this is in line with similar projects embarked upon by other central banks such as the Bank of Canada, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
In addition to Project Inthanon, the BOT is conducting a DLT proof of concept for scripless (“Securities trading where only book entries represent the security holding and settlement, and no physical certificate is issued or exchanged”) government savings bond sale to improve operational efficiency.
