Is Digital Rupiah Issuance SOON, BI Generalized In July?

JAKARTA Bank Indonesia (BI) is known to continue to accelerate the completion of digital rupiah issuance as one of the legal transaction and payment instruments. Recently, BI Governor Perry Warjiyo said that his party would release Proof of Concept (PoC) which contains more details of the digital rupiah scheme in the next few months.

"Around July we will issue Proof of Concept for digital rupiah and become the basis for Indonesia as heading towards developed countries with digital (transactions)," he said in the agenda of launching the 2022 Bank Indonesia Transparency and Accountability Report (LTABI) earlier this week.

Perry explained that the central bank would appoint a number of national banking business actors who would act as wholesalers to the public.

"We've met with big players (banks) who we see have the ability to be wholesalers," he said.

For information, on November 30, 2022, Bank Indonesia issued a White Paper, which is the initial presentation of the Garuda Project in the form of a high-level design of digital rupiah. White Paper is also a form of communication to the public regarding the digital transaction development plan.

BI said, synergy with the global central bank community and international organizations is also needed to ensure the readiness of digital rupiah designs to be harmonized with various initiatives to develop inter-state transaction interoperability.

Meanwhile, PT Bank Central Asia Tbk. (BCA) is listed as one of the leading banking institutions on BI's radar to become a wholesaler. This was directly agreed by the President Director (Presdir) of BCA Jahja Setiaatmadja.

"BI has been summoned for briefing as a wholesaler but so far there has been no appointment," said Jahja to VOI when confirmed.