Türkiye to pilot digital currency in 2021, central bank governor says

Turkey will begin trialling a previously undisclosed digital currency in the second half of 2021 , chief central bank governor Naci Agbal told members of parliament on Friday.
Turkish media widely reported:
“A research and development project on digital currency has been launched. Currently, the conceptual phase of this project has been completed. Our goal is to start pilot testing in the second half of 2021.”
Agbal’s unexpected comments put Turkey on the fast track to a central bank digital currency. Turkey has disclosed very little about its digital currency ambitions; the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), known in monetary circles as the “bank of central banks,” doesn’t even record an active CBDC project in the database it runs.
However, Turkey is now eyeing to leapfrog many of the more prominent CBDC projects. While 80% of central banks are considering CBDCs according to the BIS, only a handful — Sweden, China, the Bahamas — have progressed to the pilot stage/soft launch.
Details of Türkiye’s own CBDC project are fuzzy at best. Local crypto media Koin Bulteni reported in September that the central bank was hiring experts for its digital currency research and development team.
Among the topics of apparent interest: blockchain , cryptography and big data. (CoinDesk)