The Bank of Thailand is building a prototype of a payment system for businesses using Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Beginning next month, the CBDC prototype will be integrated with the procurement and financial management systems of Siam Cement and its suppliers.
Lasting until the end of the year, the project will help the central bank assess whether the use of a CBDC leads to higher payment efficiency for businesses such as increasing flexibility for fund transfers and faster and more agile payments between suppliers.
The plan builds on Project Inthanon, which saw Bank of Thailand team up with R3 and eight banks back in 2018 to work on a CBDC for use in domestic wholesale funds transfers.
In January, Inthanon saw the successful completion of the cross-border transfer prototype co-developed with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The partners now plan to test CBDC for other use cases in cross-border transfers.