Iranian Authorities Plan to Launch a Central Bank Digital Currency

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is expected to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) with no exact dates for commencement revealed, as stated by Mehran Moharamian, the Vice Governor for Information Technology Affairs at the CBI in January 2022.

Why it Matters?

Efforts by the CBI to digitalise its currency began in 2018 when it instructed its executive arm, the Informatics Services Corporation (ISC), to build a CBDC. Through the CBI’s plan to pilot the CBDC, Iranians are expected to be able to facilitate seamless local and international trades via digital currencies. Iran was one of the first countries to legalise Bitcoin (BTC) mining in order to reduce the country’s financial burden, with a 1,000 crypto mining licenses issued at the start of 2020 to p...