⚠️ HRF CBDC ⛓️🪙 alert from HRF for Kazakhstan (29-JAN-2024)

🗝️ℹ️ (Key Information)

CBDC Status: Launched

CBDC Launch: 2023-11-15

CBDC Model: n/a

CBDC Issued: n/a

Inflation Rate: 8.04%

One-Sentence Summary:

Kazakhstan launches digital tenge, its own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), amid concerns over potential threats to human rights and civil liberties.

✅ On Nov 15, 2023, 🇰🇿's National Payment Corporation Chairman, Binur Zhalenov, executed the first transaction using the national CBDC, or the 'digital tenge'.

✅ The CBDC was made in collaboration with Mastercard and Visa, allowing the digital tenge to be used via a payment card in various retail outlets, online stores, and websites.

✅ 🇰🇿's National Bank plans to extend its CBDC to a wider range of consumers by integrating additional banks in 2024.

✅ The development journey of the digital tenge has been traced back to May 2021 when the National Bank initially announced its plans to implement a CBDC.

✅ The pilot project was launched in June 2021, and a series of studies were conducted to fully understand the economic and regulatory implications of issuing the digital tenge.

✅ By July 2022, a decision-making framework for CBDC issuance had been published, focusing on the necessity, benefits, and potential risks of implementation.

✅ In December 2022, a CBDC white paper announced that it would be introduced in phases over three years to increase financial inclusivity, competition, and innovation.

✅ By 2023, the National Bank of 🇰🇿 flagged potential cybersecurity threats to the CBDC platform and stressed the importance of CBDC's impact on financial stability and privacy protection.

✅ However, the CBDC's introduction has raised several human rights and civil liberty concerns, with 🇰🇿 scoring only 23/100 in Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World report.

✅ The adoption of the CBDC could potentially enhance the government's ability to stifle dissent, and the prevalent corruption in the government raises concerns about unfair use and surveillance of the CBDC.

#CBDC #HumanRights #FinancialInclusion #GlobalEconomy #DigitalCurrency

What do you think could be the potential impacts of the digital tenge on the citizens' financial freedom and privacy in Kazakhstan? Is there a possible way to mitigate risks of abuse in countries with low freedom scores? Let's discuss!

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