Bitt announces MOU With Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten

Barbados-based blockchain startup Bitt has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (CBCS) which will explore the feasibility of issuing a digital guilder.

“The MOU clears the way for collaboration and information sharing regarding a feasibility study, designed to determine the viability and functionality of using a central bank-issued digital guilder within the financial ecosystems of each member, and across both members of the monetary union,” says Rawdon Adams, CEO of Bitt.

“The central bank is determined to address its challenges proactively by exploring the latest technology available, for example, to reduce the level of cash usage within the monetary union, and to facilitate more secure, more AML and KYC compliant, and more efficient financial transactions within and between Curaçao and Sint Maarten,” says Leila Matroos-Lasten, acting President of the CBCS.

“The CBCS recognises the transformative potential of innovation and technology and is committed to exploring solutions regarding efficiency of cross-jurisdictional transactions and digital payments whilst ensuring compliance and security assurances obtained by these state of the art FinTech solutions. This would be beneficial to everyone.”

This is Bitt’s second MOU with a formal monetary union, the first being with the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) signed earlier this year. Adams comments: “A central bank issued digital currency is of particular relevance in a monetary union where member states are separated by long distances – or the ocean – as with the ECCU, and the situation of Curaçao and Sint Maarten. This makes the central bank’s task of printing and distributing physical cash securely across member states that much more challenging and costly.”

“A central bank issued digital currency, which can be used on mobile wallets, facilitates secure and frictionless financial transactions and payments, using a mobile phone/tablet, within each jurisdiction and across jurisdictions in the monetary union. This solution is particularly powerful in the case of cross-border transactions, which can take days even within a monetary union, and the cost of which is only increasing.”