Lebanon’s central bank set to launch a new digital currency in 2021 as part of a broader effort to battle economic and financial crisis in the country.
Banque Du Liban Governor Riad Salameh said, the CBDC project is part of a regulatory mechanism to restore confidence in Lebanon’s banking system.
The central banker stated that a CBDC project will also help Lebanon move to a cashless system in order to increase the flow of money locally and abroad.
According to cointelegraph, Lebanon relies completely on remittances from its vast global diaspora. According to the World Bank, personal remittances represented nearly 14% of Lebanese gross domestic product in 2019, while that figure was as high as 26.4% in 2004.
As reported by coindesk, Lebanon’s private banks have deep ties to the government and neither institutions garner much trust from the public. Salameh said that Lebanese citizens presently store over $10 billion in their homes.Salameh has supported for a Lebanese CBDC since November 2017.
