I don't see them scaling back the implementation of the CBDC. Yet, the digital wallet handout (for which the premise of the CBDC is built upon to hoodwink Thais with the 10k THB carrot handout) has been broadened in scope, so that instead of people only being able to spend their digital tokens within a 4km radius of their home (per the registered "tabian baan" document of house registration), they may now spend it within the provincial or city limits instead. Hopefully people will continue to demand in-branch banking services. The computer / device illiterate will not be impacted by the need to do facial recognition scans to send over 50k THB, because they will use physical ID card within bank branches anyway, I imagine.
I too see many people stressing about finances, and I think the "debt swaps for nature" premise will be cruelly wielded by the government to have farmers and families with parcels of unused land relinquish this in order to wipe out monetary debt:
The Bangkok Post can be depressing, and unreliable, but they are where I got the "scaling back" from. I'm not sure how many people the below would cover:
"The 10,000-baht digital wallet handout is expected be offered to Thais aged 15 and older who earn less than 70,000 baht per month and have less than 500,000 baht in bank deposits."
Ah I see, scaling back the criteria / eligibility for the handout. As for the CBDC itself, I guess its success depends on how keen people are on this first phase of freebies. Then again, Bangkokians love paying with QR codes so the switcheroo to CBDC entirety may not seem like a big change, until limits get put on cash use etc like they tried to do with the enaira in Nigeria - very interesting what happened there if you missed this: https://web.archive.org/web/20221208124340/https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nigeria-limits-atm-withdrawals-45-day-force-digital-payments
I thought they scaled back the Thai CBDC to just the poor and perhaps elderly? They keep floating different ideas, though.
The elderly poor Thai poor in my area don’t know how to use cell phones, let alone own one, but they are the ones who would actually benefit the most.
Purely anecdotal, but the Thais around me are increasingly stressed about money.
I don't see them scaling back the implementation of the CBDC. Yet, the digital wallet handout (for which the premise of the CBDC is built upon to hoodwink Thais with the 10k THB carrot handout) has been broadened in scope, so that instead of people only being able to spend their digital tokens within a 4km radius of their home (per the registered "tabian baan" document of house registration), they may now spend it within the provincial or city limits instead. Hopefully people will continue to demand in-branch banking services. The computer / device illiterate will not be impacted by the need to do facial recognition scans to send over 50k THB, because they will use physical ID card within bank branches anyway, I imagine.
I too see many people stressing about finances, and I think the "debt swaps for nature" premise will be cruelly wielded by the government to have farmers and families with parcels of unused land relinquish this in order to wipe out monetary debt:
https://open.substack.com/pub/nicholascreed/p/thailands-gift-to-farmers-debt-swaps?r=16xjwn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
The Bangkok Post can be depressing, and unreliable, but they are where I got the "scaling back" from. I'm not sure how many people the below would cover:
"The 10,000-baht digital wallet handout is expected be offered to Thais aged 15 and older who earn less than 70,000 baht per month and have less than 500,000 baht in bank deposits."
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2709009/ministry-awaits-councils-wallet-ruling
Ah I see, scaling back the criteria / eligibility for the handout. As for the CBDC itself, I guess its success depends on how keen people are on this first phase of freebies. Then again, Bangkokians love paying with QR codes so the switcheroo to CBDC entirety may not seem like a big change, until limits get put on cash use etc like they tried to do with the enaira in Nigeria - very interesting what happened there if you missed this: https://web.archive.org/web/20221208124340/https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nigeria-limits-atm-withdrawals-45-day-force-digital-payments