TechFlow news: The Bank of Japan (BoJ) held its first formal meeting with the government to discuss a central bank digital currency (CBDC). According to local broadcaster NHK on January 26, the government and the BoJ agreed to resolve legal issues related to issuing a digital yen by spring 2024.
Neither the Bank of Japan nor the government has officially confirmed plans to launch a digital yen, and any decision will not be made until after a "national discussion" expected as early as 2026.
In December 2023, the Bank of Japan received a report from an expert panel at the Ministry of Finance recommending the "immediate" issuance of a digital yen. The panel concluded that Japan's CBDC should coexist with cash and that the central bank must limit potential personal data storage to the minimum necessary. The BoJ completed the second phase of its CBDC trials in May 2023. The year-long test involved 100,000 users and five intermediaries, handling transaction loads of 500 and 3,000 transactions per second. The experiment was declared successful, and the BoJ continues with its scheduled CBDC pilot program, which aims to examine the "end-to-end process" and further integration with external systems.
