Earlier this month, The Bank of Thailand contracted with a firm they tasked with developing a proof-of-concept for a Thai CBDC, settling on development costs of 10 million baht. This announcement comes as other countries are busy planning for their own financial futures. Recently, Ghana announced that the country is approaching the pilot testing phase for its own CBDC, while the president of El Salvador announced that he aimed to make Bitcoin an official currency for his Central American nation.

“While the Bahamas may have beaten them to it, it really was China that set off this race to develop and launch a CBDC. China is the first major power to launch a beta test of their technology, and their testing is extended and expansive. Now, countries across the globe see that digital currencies backed by central banks are the future of finance. There’s no longer a question of if it is going to happen. The question is now when will it happen, and who will be the first to launch in a way that encourages major sections of the populace to participate,” proposed Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

“Thailand is looking around the table. They see their regional neighbor to the north closing in on implementation, and they realize that it’s time to move the football. And, developing a proof-of-concept is the first step. Once development is complete and the technological infrastructure is ready, they’ll have to beta test it. From there, they’ll need to go back and fix any design flaws. From beginning to end, this is going to take years. But, adopting the technology early will pay dividends in the future,” opined Gardner.
Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable exchanges, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“We’re already beginning to see banks and other multinational corporations come to us and start to prepare their own infrastructure for the eventual move towards CBDCs. There’s a great deal of technological infrastructure that needs to be in place. It isn’t just building an app,” noted Gardner. “Countries, financial exchanges, payment processors, banks, and large corporations --- they are all going to see a massive change in the way that the populace interacts with money. The time to prepare for those changes is now.”