The Central Bank of Brazil plans to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by 2024, bank President Roberto Campos Neto said at a conference hosted by Brazilian news site Poder360 on Tuesday.

The bank will conduct a pilot program working with some financial institutions before starting wider use of the CBDC, a digital currency issued by a central bank, Campos Neto said.

"I think that this digitized, paid-in, integrated system, with inclusion, will help a lot in the development and inclusion of people in the financial world," Campos Neto said.

In March the country selected nine partners to help it develop a digital currency. When the CBDC is issued, Brazil will join the Bahamas, Nigeria, Eastern Caribbean and Jamaica as nations that have already issued their own CBDCs. Dozens of countries are exploring the technology, and some have become only more determined to start using one as a risk free alternative to crypto after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX roiled the industry.

"Greater inclusion, lower cost, intermediation, competition with reduced barriers to entry, efficiency in risk control, monetization of data, complete tokenization of financial assets and contracts," Campos Neto said. "This is what we see in this digital economy in Brazil."