The Central Bank’s governor, John Rolle says the Bahamian digital dollar will strengthen defense against money laundering and other financial crimes because they could now track and record every transaction. Businesses that accept cash payments on any significant level will have less-than-full convenience in disposing of cash receipts until the restoration of physical banking structure. Mr Rolle further said that the first priority of sand dollar will be to strengthen data privacy and other consumer protection for both the digital currency and other electronic payments transaction. He added that they wanted to sensitize the public about the benefit of maintaining their mobile phones security to protect the access to funds in their wallets. Bahama deputy Prime Minister, K Peter Turnquest was excited to announce the country as the first with not just a digital currency but a Central Bank digital currency and not to be confused with a cryptocurrency. He also said the sand dollar will allow the Abaconians to have easier access to financial services as they can now make payments at local grocers or gas stations right through their mobile devices in real time.
In addendum, sand dollar will allow seamless peer-to-peer transfers and the consumers can subsequently feel secure as the sand dollar offers multi-factor authentication where they can use facial recognition, biometrics or a password to access their sand dollar app on their mobile devices. Mr Turnquest added that numerous key components including offline functionality following hurricanes and other natural disasters will be unlocked through the sand dollar. Even payments or transfers can be made without Wi-Fi or data.
