On December 29, 2021, the Mexican Government announced the development of its own digital peso which would be launched in 2024 on social media. However, this timeline is becoming more and more unlikely to be fulfilled, according to new information coming from Banxico, the central bank of the country.
Local sources claim that the development of the Mexican central bank’s (CBDC) digital currency is still in its early stages, with the division of the bank responsible for building it, the general directorate of payment systems, and market infrastructures, still figuring out the conditions for its issuance.
The Bank of Mexico (Banxico), in response to a question about when the digital peso might be issued, said, “The result of this initial phase entails the preparation of a budget that is currently being determined, and will, in turn, allow establishing a probable date on which said CBDC will be available.”
Furthermore, it was disclosed more than $500,000 was used for the development of this currency during 2022, allocated from funds provided by Banxico.
Other estimations for the launch date of the Mexican CBDC have been made by different officers of the Government. In April, the Governor of Banxico, Victoria RodrÃguez Ceja, stated that the whole development cycle would take the institution around three years. However, this contradicts the statements made by the institution claiming that there is still no launch date for the digital peso.
At the time, Rodriguez Ceja also established a clear distinction between the future CBDC and other cryptocurrencies, stating that they were unsupported assets, and were not legal tender in the country. The Mexican CBDC is designed to be interconnected with the traditional financial system, allowing banks to facilitate the transaction of these tokens through the already-existent payment system.
Mexico is another country on the long list of nations that are currently investigating or already developing their CBDCs. According to the Bank of International Settlements, eight of every ten central banks are currently studying these solutions.