Montran and eCurrency launch solution for central bank currency management

By Leandra Monteiro

Montran Corporation and eCurrency Mint announced the successful integration of Montran’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) with eCurrency’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) platform. As a result, CBDC is seamlessly interfaced with central bank currency management payment operations. The first implementation is the Bank of Jamaica which currently has Montran’s RTGS deployed for final settlement in Jamaican Dollars and is in the process of a national rollout of the eCurrency solution to provide Jamaica’s Central Bank Digital Currency, Jam-Dex.

CBDC is issued under a well-defined set of governance, security and management processes similar to the issuance and distribution of today’s notes and coins. CBDC must seamlessly interface with the central banking systems used for the payment and settlement of currency issued and redeemed to/from intermediary banks responsible for the distribution of digital currency to the public. The RTGS is the settlement and clearing infrastructure provided by the Central Bank. RTGS serves as a core function of the Central Bank and remains critical to the implementation of monetary and financial stability policies.

The collaboration between Montran and eCurrency provides Central Banks with the same level of control and efficiency on CBDC issuance and redemption as notes and coins. This comprehensive solution automates the process in which participants order CBDC and settle the order in the RTGS system, similar to the processes used for physical currency, with the added efficiency of digital currency. The solution is open and caters to standard messaging formats. It is also fully configurable to meet different country requirements and environments.

“This is a groundbreaking development by our two companies and is the first CBDC implementation to achieve this level of integration and interoperability. We are excited to be working with eCurrency to continue to innovate with CBDC and enable instant payments with Montran’s ISO20022 compliant Instant Payments Solution,” said Charles Walsh, Executive Vice President, Montran. “This is fully in line with Montran’s overall strategy to extend and expand our existing strategic partnerships with our Central Bank clients in the Caribbean and around the world”.

eCurrency is a pioneer in Central Bank Digital Currency. It is the world’s first true retail CBDC solution enabling Central Banks to mint, issue, circulate and redeem CBDC as secure digital bearer instruments. CBDC is issued as legal tender and distributed through existing banking and fintech ecosystems. “We are delighted to form this partnership with Montran to provide a comprehensive solution for our central bank clients as they deploy and distribute CBDC in their national ecosystem”, said Jonathan Dharmapalan, eCurrency CEO.