The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | Dec 30th

By Puja Sharma

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

The Turkish Central Bank has tested a digital lira. As part of the digital lira project, the central bank of Turkey (CBT) is considering whether and how to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

According to the project’s latest development, the first digital lira transaction has been successfully tested. It added that it will continue piloting the digital lira system in the first quarter of 2023 alongside key stakeholders. Findings will be shared via an evaluation report, the CBT said in a press release.

Throughout the year, the CBT intends to expand the digital lira experimentation platform to involve a select group of banks and financial technology companies and to run further technical tests on the system.

As reported by PYMNTS, the CBT has signed agreements with the technology firms Havelsan, Aselsan, and Tubitak-Bilgem, which have been researching, developing, and testing the digital lira.

And Turkey isn’t alone in ramping up its CBDC investigation. Central banks in 114 countries have undertaken some form of investigation into digital currencies during the past year. Nevertheless, these moves have not yet been matched with widespread acceptance among consumers. an ex-official of the People’s Bank of China said that consumers have shown little interest in the digital yuan during its two-year trial,

“The cumulative circulation of the digital yuan in the two years of the trial has been only 100 billion yuan ($14 billion),” Xie Ping told a conference at Tsinghua University, adding that “usage has been low, highly inactive.”

The CBT’s interest in a CBDC comes as Turkish authorities have indicated that they will crack down on cryptocurrencies following a surge in interest as Turkish consumers have looked to hedge against rising inflation. In September 2021, a U.S. dollar was worth around 8 Turkish lira, yet on Thursday, the exchange rate was sitting at nearly 19 lira per dollar.

Deals of the week

• Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait and ABK-DIFC close landmark $825m facility
• Argo Blockchain sells Texas facility to Galaxy Digital for $65m
• Khaleeji Commercial Bank introduces payment service via Samsung Wallet
• SaveIN raises funds, takes total seed round to $8m
• Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait and ABK-DIFC close landmark $825m facility
• African Development Bank signs $40m deal with Bank One of Mauritius
• US to buy Voyager assets for $1b
• SaveIN raises funds, takes total seed round to $8m
• UK’s Recognise Bank secures £25m investment from PV27
• Akulaku announces $200m investment from MUFG
• FinTech Nivo secures £1m funding from Maven and Barclays

Be on the lookout for

TraiCon Events will be hosting Morocco’s premier FinTech event titled as “FinTech Revolutionmmit” supported by the Union of Arab Banks scheduled on the 27-28 February 2023 at the Hotel Sofitel, Casablanca, Morocco. This forum will be attended by over top 300+ participants the includes BFSI experts, FinTech leaders, ministry & central bank authorities, investors & corporates across Morocco.

This summit aims to bring together FinTech leaders & BFSI experts to discuss and deliberate the trends around financial technology and investment opportunities for the finance sector. This dedicated event is the best opportunity to discover why Morocco is and will remain Africa’s leading financial services hub. FinTech founders, central bank officials, FSI experts, regulators, policy-makers, technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and media from around the world will come together to learn, discuss, debate and network.