Oman Central Bank official announces CBDC project

Oman Central Bank official announces CBDC project

The Executive President of the Central Bank of Oman, Mr. Tahir Salim Al Amri, commented during the 7t Edition of the new Age Banking Summit on the topic of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies)

As per a tweet from Oman News Agency stated, “The Central Bank of Oman is working to issue its own CBDC. Many central banks are studying the possibility of issuing their own CBDCs and the Central Bank of Oman is committed to supporting innovation in the financial sector.”

He also mentioned that work was underway to open banking API services and overcoming challenges that face the digitization sector, and stressed the importance of cyber security.

In April 2022, Oman Capital Market Authority announced that it would incorporate real estate tokenization within its virtual assets regulation as well as license crypto exchanges. The Oman virtual asset regulation will be finalized by Q3 of 2022.

Kemal Rizadi, Advisor at the Oman Capital Market Authority made these comments during the Real Estate Exhibition and Conference held in Muscat Oman. As per the comments, real estate tokenization is an option being considered in the proposed virtual asset regulatory framework under process within CMA.

Earlier this year in January 2022 The Oman capital markets Authority announced a tender for specialized companies to assist in setting up a legislative and regulatory framework for virtual assets and licensing supervision and regulations of Virtual assets service providers within the Sultanate of Oman.

Finally it also seems that Oman is indirectly starting to enter the crypto mining sector. Oman’s sovereign wealth fund took an equity stake in a U.S. firm which helps fossil-fuel producers cut flaring by using stranded natural gas to power cryptocurrency mining instead.

Oman Investment Authority was part of the $350 million equity round that Crusoe Energy Systems Inc. raised in April, 2022 according to a statement.

US based Crusoe is opening an office in Oman to deploy power generators and mining equipment for capturing gas at well sites. These statements were made by CEO of Crusoe Chase Lochmiller. It is known that MENA accounts for about 38 percent of the world’s gas flaring.

WadZPay Blockchain payments provider to list on UAE Crypto Exchange soon

WadZPay Blockchain payments provider to list on UAE Crypto Exchange soon

WadzPay will list its token on a Middle East crypto asset Exchange soon, according to its Group CEO. In a tweet WadzPay CEO Anish Jain states “We will also expand presence to regional exchanges in UAE, India, Africa and South America.”

The WadzPay ecosystem provides infrastructure for emerging CBDC and Stable coin technologies allowing governments and institutions to sandbox or commercialize programs both at a domestic or international level.

WadzPay is building an interoperable and agnostic blockchain-based payments ecosystem. The company was founded in 2018 in Singapore and is currently operating in South East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Africa. As per their website the company saw the potential for CBDC and Digital Assets leading the next revolution in the payments industry: by enabling faster payments, improvements in security, cost efficiency with optionality.

They claim to be working with large international payment companies, banks and other large global companies to enable digital asset-based transaction processing and settlement. WadzPay is currently present in Dubai UAE.

WadzPay recently took part in Commercial Bank of Dubai’s Innovation Challenge at DIFC FinTech Hive. Where they presented their digital wallet solution and were shortlisted in the Top 10 Companies, from a field of 100. In the final round WadzPay together with Commercial Bank of Dubai’s team will Pitch their solution to  their Executive Council.