It is a Gold-Backed Digital Currency for Enhanced Financial Transparency
International panelists, experts, leaders, think tanks and the entire country bore witness to the historic introduction of ‘Ter’ as the official currency of Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) this week, representing a bold and innovative approach to urban development, monetary policy, and sustainable economics.
‘Ter’, which literally translates as Treasure, is being developed and will be backed by physical gold and built on blockchain technology, ensuring transparency wherever it is.
The Finance Managing Director (MD) of GMC, Hobeng Lim said that it is cheaper and is more efficient. “So in a way, it’s a return, a refresh, but a reinterpretation of the gold standard of the past, but we think we can do it in a slightly different way, based on blockchain where every unit of ‘Ter’ is backed by an immutable weight in gold that cannot be changed,” said Hobeng Lim.
“If you use a food ordering app, you can tell in real time where exactly the order is, but when you stand a remittance, you have no idea where the money is, which correspondent bank is sitting in, has it even cleared compliance? So the idea for this new currency is to be based on the blockchain, to provide transparency.”
The Finance MD further asserted that this newly introduced currency imposes strong monetary discipline on the GMC. “We cannot be a money printer. We have to be very prudent and disciplined. Let’s see where this takes us,” Hobeng Lim said.
This new currency of GMC is expected to improve efficiency in payments, serve the underbanked, as well as through the blockchain reels. It is often cheaper and faster.
According to the Finance MD of GMC, the financial service sector of the GMC will be based on three C’s, meaning Clarity, Creation and Customer.
Hobeng said, “On the financial services side, we deliberately chose a financial regulatory framework that is very clear, easy to understand, modular and most importantly, the law has to be understandable by the average person.”
Similarly, the second C is Creation, where GMC will create a regulatory system that is business friendly yet robust, safe and sound. “We do not want to build the financial sector from an ivory tower. We want to co create this and we want to adopt a very consultative approach where we invite partners to come in, tell us the viewers on what is needed,” said Hobeng Lim.
The last C is Customer, where the GMC wants to serve their customer, understand their needs and help respond their customer’s and stakeholder’s queries, amongst others.
Meanwhile, Hobeng Lim said that Bhutan is no stranger to digital assets. “We want to build out a place that is not just for traditional finance, but for digital assets like crypto assets as well on the traditional finance space.”
GMC, given its positioning in the middle of so many vibrant regions and homes, Hobeng Lim shared that they want GMC to be an international financial center that anyone, anywhere in the world can use to serve clients wherever they are.
To this, Finance MD said that they will focus on sectors like wealth management, fund management, and on the digital asset space. “We will work on things like FinTech, financial technology, as well as digital assets.”
By Sherab Dorji, Thimphu
