BC intends to launch digital real in 2024, says Campos Neto

The president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, said this Tuesday (13) that Brazil needs to move forward in the elaboration of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which it intends to launch in 2024 in order to make facing a global digitized interaction system.

In a seminar on digital security and data protection promoted by Poder360, Campos Neto said that the Central Bank plans to start a closed digital currency pilot in 2023, with the participation of only a few financial institutions, and stated that he would like to launch the CBDC in 2024.

“If we understand that, at the end of the day, assets will be ‘tokenized’ and, looking at the banks’ balance sheets, assets and liabilities can be transformed into ‘tokens’, we will need a currency to face this new interaction system”, he said, referring to practices that have been adopted globally.

According to the president of the BC, the autarchy intends to deviate from the trend of “expulsion from the digital world” that has been seen in some countries, which have sought to prohibit banks from having custody of digital assets.

“We think the opposite; we think that not only do we not have to prohibit banks from having digital custody, we have to encourage banks to have digital custody”, said Campos Neto, arguing that the concentration of custody in a few intermediary institutions raises financial risks.

“That will bring the world […] from decentralized finance closer to regulation, not farther away, which is what some other countries are doing.”

He said he believed that cross-border payments would improve with a digital real, but he considered that the internationalization of Pix could also play this role.

Campos Neto said there is great interest from international central banks in the Pix, with the expectation that collaboration processes between Brazil and other countries will happen more quickly in Latin America, but also with growing demand from African nations.

He added that there will be news about Pix’s internationalization in the first half of next year.

Questioned about how the change of governments in Brazil could affect the Central Bank’s innovation agenda, Campos Neto said he does not expect major interference.

“The Central Bank has autonomy… This vision that we are having was adopted by the Central Bank staff and will continue to remain independent of the government, regardless of who the president is, regardless of the term of office. In viewing what the financial future is […] I don’t think it’s going to change anything.”