The first payment transactions on the Digital Turkish Lira Network have been successfully completed, the Turkish monetary authority announced on Thursday. The operations were carried out as part of studies for the central bank digital currency (CBDC) project’s initial phase.
The CBRT added that it would carry out pilot tests with technology stakeholders in the first quarter of the following year, but on a smaller scale and in a closed-circuit setting. It promised that a thorough evaluation report would make the results of these tests available to the public.
The collaboration platform for the digital lira will be expanded by the Turkish central bank in 2023 as well. The regulator explained that in order to increase participation, advanced phases of the pilot study will be revealed and will involve a select group of banks and financial technology companies.
In light of this, the CBRT will continue to test real architectural configurations developed in areas like the integration of instant payment systems with distributed ledger technologies and the use of these technologies in payment systems.
The bank also stressed that a review of the CBDC’s legal ramifications had revealed that digital identification is of critical importance for the project. The CBRT intends to give priority to research on the technological requirements for the digital lira as well as its legal and economic framework.