Saudi and UAE Central Banks Release Report on Joint Digital Currency Project Aber

Saudi and UAE Central Banks Release Report on Joint Digital Currency Project Aber

The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) have released the report on their joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative dubbed as Project Aber.

The wholesale CBDC used only by the central banks and the banks participating in the initiative, as a settlement unit for domestic as well as cross-border commercial bank transactions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Stakeholders of the Aber Ecosystem

This initiative aims to proof of concept for, study, understand, and evaluate the feasibility of issuing a digital currency for central banks (wholesale CBDC) with a view to developing cross-border payment systems and reducing transfer times and costs between banks, in addition to experiment the direct use and actual application of technologies such as the distributed ledgers.

Focus areas and technology platforms in CBDC projects

Over the course of a whole year, usage solutions were designed, implemented, and managed. The solutions, results, and main lessons learned were all documented in Project Aber report. With the project outputs, the report aims to significantly enrich knowledge content in this field, in addition to laying the foundations for future work to be explored in the coming years.

A timeline of wholesale CBDC projects

The final results of the