The UAE’s Central Bank announced recently that they aim to introduce a digital currency as part of its 2023-2026 strategy which aims to position the regulatory body among the world’s top 10 central banks, according to media reports.
The digital currency plan is in line with the growing worldwide disruptive trend initiated by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank along with the G-20.
It also includes supporting the digital transformation in the fintech sector by adopting the latest technologies in Artificial Intelligence and big data which will help them develop a secure and strong financial cloud infrastructure.
To prepare for the deployment of digital currency, the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) have already started introducing policies and regulations based on their jurisdiction.
The UAE Central Bank released a statement saying, “Besides seeking to develop advanced and secure cloud infrastructure to operate financial and insurance services, the strategy aims to support the UAE’s green economy efforts and continue work to develop more innovative financial infrastructure to boost the UAE’s competitiveness in this field.”
The bank has already taken some major steps to create a digital currency in February 2021. The UAE regulator and the Digital Currency Institute (DCI) of the People’s Bank of China (PBC) have come together for a central bank digital currency project for cross-border foreign currency payments.