The National Bank of Rwanda, Rwanda’s central bank, is doing some research on how they can offer their own digital currency.

This news was reported on August 22nd to BNN Bloomberg. The National Bank of Rwanda wants to offer digital currency to boost economic growth and increase transaction efficiency. Peace Masozera Uwase, the Financial Stability Director General, says that more work needs to be done before a new currency can be implemented.

He’s concerned about how an entire currency can be converted into digital form, how it can be distributed, and how quickly the transactions can be processed. There are many challenges that come into play. He’s not sure how any possible technological issues can be dealt with and wants to continue to work on these challenges before they are ready to launch the new currency. Once everything is in order, the National Bank of Rwanda will join in.

Learning Lessons from Other Worldwide Central Banks

Uwase says that the National Bank of Rwanda will study how other central banks around the world were able to create a nationwide digital currency. The countries the bank will be studying include the Netherlands, Singapore, and Canada. He is hopeful that his central bank will be able to learn some things from these other banks that will assist with the implementation of their official digital currency.

As previously reported in June, the International Monetary Fund wrote about Uruguay’s pilot program for their central bank's digital currency. In addition, the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, the Ukraine, Sweden, China, and the Bahamas are going to be launching tests very soon.

China Accelerates Towards Launch of a Digital Currency

This week, the People’s Bank of China is very close to the launch of a digital currency after five years of development and research. Libra, Facebook’s proposed stablecoin, has also prompted China’s central bank to hasten their launch.