Central banks from two heavyweights in the Middle West-based economic areas have reportedly generated a report, outlining details of the collaborative CBDC project, with the outcomes primarily mentioning blockchain. 

Specifically, Project Aber – initiated in January last year – was reportedly a collaborative project between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, to design a “proof of concept”, dedicated to make contributions in the knowledge pool for “CBDC and DLT technologies.”

The joint effort is reportedly unprecedented, where the name selection – “Aber” – regards to the core of the project. 

“The name Aber was selected because, as the Arabic word, for “crossing boundaries”, it both captures the cross-border nature of the project as well as our hope that it would also cross boundaries in terms of the use of the technology.”

Divided into three independent stages, which enables progressive expansion of the coverage of the trial to six different commercial banks, the report reportedly stated that the project employed a cryptocurrency, supported with actual money, in an attempt to squeeze out “greater consideration”, regarding problems associated with security and existing payment systems.

The report concluded that  a dual-generated CBDC was not only appropriate, technical-wise, for cross border payments, but also offers  “significant improvement over centralized payment systems in terms of architectural resilience.”

 “The key requirements […] were all met, including complex requirements around privacy and decentralization, as well as requirements related to mitigating economics risks, such as central bank visibility of money supply and traceability of issued currency.”