Italy’s central bank, Banca d’Italia, announced that it has signed a preliminary agreement on payment systems with South Korea’s central bank, Bank of Korea, on December 5th. According to the Italian central bank, this preliminary agreement was made for mutual information and communication technology (ICT) sharing.
The agreement signed between Banca d’Italia and Bank of Korea is based on real-time payment systems and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) related to ICT issues. Luigi Federico Signorini, Director General of Banca d’Italia, also attended the public meeting and signed the agreement.
Both countries have taken notable steps regarding CBDCs throughout the past year, but they have exhibited different approaches. Instead of adopting a CBDC approach within the framework of the European Union like other European countries, Banca d’Italia continues to conduct research and studies on distributed ledger technology (DLT) based transactions through hash-linked smart contracts.
South Korea, on the other hand, launched a pilot program for CBDC infrastructure technology in October. The pilot program covers both private banks and public institutions, and technical support is provided by the Bank for International Settlements. In November, South Korea announced that it would invite 100,000 citizens to participate in the CBDC pilot testing phase starting from 2024.
While interest in CBDC projects continues, there are also ongoing strict sanctions against cryptocurrencies. A German politician stated that he is a loyal opponent of the European Union’s digital euro project and believes that CBDC projects violate privacy. In the United States, many prominent figures have opposed the country’s CBDC project. According to them, CBDC projects will either be a checkmate or the end of the game that has sparked significant debates within the crypto community.