Press Release: Public Update on The Bahamas Digital CurrencySandDollar

Published: Thursday May 25th, 2023

Press Release

Public Update on The Bahamas Digital Currency-SandDollar

Overview

During April and May 2023, the Central Bank of The Bahamas continued with more accelerated outreach for SandDollar, across New Providence, Grand Bahama and the Family Islands. In addition, technical developments to extend proprietary wallet access to the Bahamas Automated Clearing House (ACH) via the SandDollar infrastructure were completed. This facility is set for release to the SandDollar digital wallet providers at the end of May.In the meantime, the first iteration of Wallet 2.0, which will permit user self-activation, progressed to beta testing, with a general releasetargeted for the middle of the summer.

Ongoing Technical Upgrades

The Central Bank has completed developments to extend ACH top-up, redemption access to the proprietary SandDollar-enabled digital wallets. Digital wallet providers can begin activating this customer feature by the end of May 2023. SandDollar wallet holders of all levels will be able to use this feature, once provided with a top-up address through their respective digital wallet provider. All mobile wallet account holders will be able to use the third-party transfer features within their online and mobile banking applications to sendfunds to their SandDollar accounts, regardless of wallet level or wallet provider. While all wallets will be able to receive top-upsfrom Bank accounts, only account holders who have successfullyundertaken enhanced KYC for Tier II (individuals) and Tier III (businesses) statuses will be permitted to redeem SandDollars through linked bank deposit accounts. The SandDollar redemption process transfers SandDollars from a wallet to the linked bank account. Such users must perform a penny test successfully before redemption links can be used. To prepare for the expanded access to the ACH, the Central Bank will release instructional videos on completing online top-ups using each commercial banking platform.

In June, the Central Bank will commence beta testing of the white-labelled Wallet 2.0 for automatic self-onboarding of users to lower KYC (Tier I) wallets. This app is targeted for release to the public inAugust 2023. It would provide the users with access to a branded version of the Central Bank-developed app linked to the SandDollar Authorised Financial Institution (AFI) of choice selected by the individual. Wallet 2.0 also provides merchant services features, which are scheduled for a later 2023 release date.

New Authorised Financial Institutions

As of June 2023, the Bank of The Bahamas (BOB) will become the latest AFI to begin providing SandDollar wallet services to customers in a targeted and phased rollout. The Central Bank collaborated closely with BOB to allow the institution to pilot limited use of the original SandDollar app, before this deployment to customers.

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