Turkish Central Bank successfully tests Digital Lira

By Gloria Methri

The Central Bank of Turkey (CBT) has tested the digital Lira. Like many central banks around the world, the CBT is exploring if it could issue a central digital currency as part of the Digital Turkish Lira Project.

In the project’s latest development, the CBT announced that it has conducted the first payment transaction on the Digital Turkish Lira Network. The transaction was executed successfully under the leadership of the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT).

The CBRT said it will continue piloting the digital lira system in the first quarter of 2023 alongside key technology stakeholders. Findings obtained from these tests will be shared with the public via a comprehensive evaluation report, it added.

Throughout the year, the CBRT plans to expand the Digital Turkish Lira Collaboration Platform to involve a select group of banks and financial technology companies and to run further technical tests on the system.

Against this backdrop, the CBRT will continue to run tests for authentic architectural setups designed in areas such as the use of distributed ledger technologies in payment systems and the integration of these technologies with instant payment systems.

In 2021, the CBT signed agreements with technology firms Havelsan, Aselsan, and Tubitak-Bilgem, which have been researching, developing, and testing the digital currency.

According to the central bank, studies on the legal aspects of the Digital Turkish Lira demonstrate that digital identification is of critical importance for the project. Therefore, studies on the economic and legal framework of the digital currency as well as its technological requirements will be prioritized throughout 2023.

Notably, Turkey is not the only country ramping up its central digital currency investigation. Central banks in as many as 114 countries have undertaken some form of investigation into digital currencies in the past year.