JCB Advances to Phase Two of Autonomous CBDC Testing

JCB, a leading Japanese payment system, has reached a significant milestone in its mission to explore the potential of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The company, in collaboration with IDEMIA and Soft Space, has successfully completed the initial phase of its CBDC payment solution. This groundbreaking development allows merchants to accept CBDC payments without the need to modify their point-of-sale (POS) terminals or payment cards. The successful trial in Tokyo in 2023 marked a crucial step forward for JCB, IDEMIA, and Soft Space, propelling them into the next phase of the project.

In the second phase of the project, customers will have the ability to transfer CBDC funds from one individual to another using their cards and mobile phones, even without an internet connection. These autonomous peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers can occur either from one card to another using NFC-enabled mobile devices as intermediaries or directly between NFC-enabled mobile devices.

As part of the pilot project, Idemia and Soft Space will provide an internal tokenization server, a mobile wallet application, a card application, a SoftPOS package, as well as all necessary APIs and SDKs for integration purposes.

Joel Tay, CEO of Soft Space, expressed excitement about the success of the first project phase and the use of existing technologies like EMV contactless and Tap on Mobile SoftPOS. He also highlighted their plans to explore host card emulation (HCE) and various other autonomous scenarios in the second phase. These developments are aimed at creating more practical use cases for the CBDC solution, ensuring that the final implementation serves the needs of society effectively.