Ripple Partners with Colombia’s Central Bank to Explore CBDCs

• Colombia has the fifth-largest economy in Latin America and a growing crypto community.
• Most South Americans rely on crypto for remittances and to combat inflation.
• Ripple recently secured a huge win in its case against the SEC as a court released emails containing the controversial speech made by former SEC Director William Hinman.

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Colombia’s central bank, Banco de la República, is collaborating with payment provider Ripple to test blockchain technologies on the XRP ledger. Ripple has focused on increasing its presence in Latin America, and the partnership with Colombia’s central bank is a step in that direction. 

In its announcement, Ripple revealed that Colombia’s central bank and the Ministry for Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) will leverage Ripple’s CBDC platform, XRPL, to “pilot use cases that will enhance Colombia’s high-value payment system.” The project is part of MinTIC’s exploration of blockchain technology. 

Ripple added that the CBDC platform “will be experimented with and tested in a controlled environment without compromising public resources.” As per an official announcement, the pilot will run through 2023.

According to the announcement,

The goal of the third phase of MinTIC’s experimentation with blockchain will be to educate national and territorial public entities through interactive and collaborative real-world application experiments on how blockchain technology’s unparalleled speed, scalability, and transparency can revolutionize payment systems and data management.

Mauricio Lizcano, Minister of Information Technologies and Communications of Colombia, hailed the partnership with Ripple as a progressive effort. Lizcano explained that “potential efficiencies can be evaluated through the results obtained in the development of a solution with blockchain technology, which manages to improve and complement the processes in the entities in a safe and efficient way.”

James Wallis, vice president of Central Bank Engagements and CBDCs at Ripple, noted that the partnership would further reflect the importance and relevance of blockchain technology. Wallis added that “this project will pave the way for transformative advancements in the utilization of blockchain technology within the public sector.”

CBDCs differ from regular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Some nations see them as less risky digital assets. CBDCs are the central bank-backed digital equivalent of a country’s fiat currency, such as the US dollar or the euro. 

Presently, the Bahamas, Nigeria, and China are some of the few countries that have launched CBDCs. Others are presently researching or about to release their CBDC. Colombia’s interest in releasing a CBDC was first announced last year by the country’s director of Colombia’s tax and customs agency. The move, according to the director, was to improve transactions and prevent tax evasion.

Ripple Secures a Huge Win Against the SEC

Ripple has seen increased growth amidst the rising demand for CBDCs. Ripple aims to help financial institutions like banks transact quickly and without fees. The project’s creators launched the XRP token, which has been at the center of a lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC filed a surprise lawsuit against Ripple in late 2020, claiming that the payment company had deceived its investors and sold unregistered securities in the form of XRP tokens. Ripple denied such claims and has been in an ongoing legal battle with the US regulator. 

Interestingly, Ripple scored a huge win earlier this week as a court released emails connected to a widely publicized speech by former SEC Director William Hinman, who argued that Ethereum and Bitcoin were not securities. Ripple and the bulk of the crypto community believe that the emails would change the outcome of the case as they show that the SEC has not held a consistent view about cryptocurrencies. 

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