China has become the symbol of central bank digital currency development globally with its digital yuan. However, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Asian giant isn’t the leader in this field. The Big Four audit firm named the Bahamas as the leading country in CBDC, which is making bigger strides with its Sand Dollar digital currency. PwC published its inaugural Global CBDC Index recently, measuring global central banks’ maturity level in deploying their own CBDC.

“General public will be the biggest beneficiary of the CBDC deployment.”

PwC’s report stated, “we believe CBDCs will contribute significantly to the modernization of the international monetary landscape, hand-in-hand with reconfiguration in both payment and financial infrastructure. They will generate numerous opportunities for further digitization in both corporates, and financial institutions as their integration in payment and financial infrastructure progresses.” Henri Arslanian, the global digital currency leader at PwC, said that the general public would be the biggest beneficiary of the CBDC deployment. “It will give them access for the first time to a digital form of central bank money. And that is a big milestone in the evolution of money,” he stated.

The Bahamas is the global leader in CBDC development.

According to the PwC report, the Bahamas is the global leader in CBDC development. PwC gave the Bahamas a rating of 92. Cambodia was second with a rating of 83, with mainland China coming in third with 75. Ukraine, Uruguay, Ecuador, Eastern Caribbean, Sweden, South Korea, and Turkey completed the list. On interbank CBDC development, Thailand ranks first globally, tying at the top with Hong Kong. As reported earlier, Thailand and Hong Kong have collaborated on Project Inthanon-LionRock, a joint study for an interbank state-backed digital currency. China and the UAE also recently joined the project.