Banxico informed Congress since December 16 that it is developing its digital currency

The Bank of Mexico (Banxico) works on the development of a platform aimed at the implementation of a digital currency. This was reported by the central bank itself to Congress, on December 16 in the Annual Report on the Exercise of the powers conferred by the Law for Transparency and the regulation of financial services.

This development is based on the characteristics that today the clearing and settlement infrastructure of the Interbank Electronic Payment System (SPEI).

Inside the document, they detail that these characteristics are operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; instant payments, high availability, process standardization and robust measures for risk management as well as cyber resilience.

“The project has among its objectives the opening of accounts for the registration of a digital currency both for banked and unbanked people, thereby contributing to financial inclusion ”, they specify in the document.

In addition, it seeks to expand the possibilities of payment in the economy under the premises of speed, security, efficiency and interoperability, that is, its interaction with other payment systems.

In the same document, the central bank specifies that the development of what will be the digital currency of Banco de México, seek to “lay the foundations for innovation by having a versatile asset from a technological point of view for the implementation of automation and programmability mechanisms for the use of services financial ”.

CoDi, first step

The Bank of Mexico explained to Congress that the development of the project was conceived in three stages, first resorting to the “ecosystem CoDi”In order to allow transfers to be carried out indicating only the beneficiary information, such as a cell phone number.

In addition, it involves the temporary maintenance of balances in favor of an unbanked user.

At a later stage, this functionality may evolve to a tokenized payment order scheme, so that a transfer can be subsequently redeemed.

Finally, and based on the elements developed in the two previous stages, the development of functionalities to establish digital currency registries in favor of users directly or indirectly at the central bank is contemplated.

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