The Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU) presented a six-month pilot plan for the issuance and use of digital notes of the Uruguayan peso.
It is a test plan with a view to evaluating whether or not it transforms into a way of doing business in the future, announced the president of the Central Bank, Mario Bergara, during a presentation on Friday, November 3.
This pilot process is carried out for the first time at international level and consists of a test with 10,000 mobile phone users of ANTEL, which will last for 6 months.
The platform will allow payment operations at merchants and adhered networks as well as transfers from person to person among registered users.
To use the platform, you must download the application for phones from the epeso.com.uy website, access the digital wallet, register and make the first charge in Red Pagos to create the digital wallet (Cash In). The mechanism is available for both smartphones and non-smartphones.
The first issue of digital tickets consists of 20 million Uruguayan pesos, of which 7 million were already transferred to Red Pagos.
In this pilot test stage the participating entities are the BCU (issuer), ANTEL (provider of the telephone network), RGC (system provider), IBM (storage support, circulation and control), IN Switch (user management and transfers), and RedPagos (ticketing), a company that accepted the open proposal made by the BCU.
“This is not a new currency, it is the same Uruguayan peso that instead of having a physical support has a technological support,” said the president of the Central Bank.
Bergara said that the drastic substitution of the digital ticket by the physical is not sought, so that if after the pilot test it is decided to advance with digital tickets there will be a transition period for citizens to acquire the habit.
“Therefore it will have the same functionalities, it will replicate the same as the physical ticket in the event that it is implemented as a natural way of issuing banknotes,” he said.
The president of the BCU stressed that this initiative is consistent with the focus of the advantages of electronic media over physical media. “It is expensive to print tickets, the distribution in the whole territory, the security for the transport of the same, and also the opacity that the physical ticket promotes”, exemplified.
“This pilot test does not involve costs for the BCU and then it will be evaluated if it is massified according to the convenience for the country and the results of the test,” said Bergara.
Bergara presented the initiative together with the president of ANTEL, Andrés Tolosa; and Gonzalo De Azpitarte, representative of Roberto Giori Company, a company with 35 years of experience in the security printing industry.
Source: bcu
