Bank of Mexico Plans to Launch Digital Currency by 2024

Central bank’s plans aim to foster financial inclusion in a cash-based economy, government says

(MEXICO CITY – BANXICO).- The Bank of Mexico plans to put its own digital currency in circulation by the year 2024, to use the latest payments technology to foment financial inclusion in an economy that relies on cash for most transactions, according to the Mexican government.

The central bank considers it important “to use these new technologies and latest-generation payments infrastructure as valuable options to advance financial inclusion in the country,” the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in a tweet late Wednesday.

The Bank of Mexico has said it is studying the development of a digital currency in several phases. It will use as a basis for the platform the current electronic payments system to expand payment options “under a rapid, safe and efficient” framework, the bank said in a recent report.

Central bank authorities have been in talks with financial institutions about the implementation and the infrastructure needed to launch a digital currency that could be used for basic transactions, a person familiar with the Bank of Mexico’s plans said.

A large number of transactions are done with cash, particularly given the large informal economy, which in 2020 accounted for around 22% of Mexico’s gross domestic product.

TYT Newsroom