According to Cointelegraph, the Central Bank of Eswatini has released the design of the digital currency (CBDC) digital lilangeni. The CBDC will be a retail digital currency based on a distributed database, managed by financial institutions in online wallets and hard wallets in the form of smart cards.

Digital lilangeni will be distributed to users by financial institutions through the central bank's infrastructure, with pseudo-anonymity, ensuring privacy while meeting KYC and AML requirements. Payments are programmable, allowing automatic payments or limiting children's spending.

Although cash remains the main mode of payment in Eswatini, the central bank is promoting a “cash-less” society and phasing out cheques. Digital lilangeni needs to be interoperable within existing electronic money frameworks and international standards.

The CBDC was designed by Giesecke+Devrient using its Filia technology and has been used in proof-of-concept and pilot projects. Staff training was one of the reasons for project delays and needs to be addressed on a larger scale.

Eswatini’s CBDC proposal is similar to Rwanda’s digital currency in that both are token-based currencies based on a distributed database, are programmable, and are suitable for underdeveloped economies.