In early November, news spread that Tunisia had beaten China in the race to the world’s first CBDC. However, soon the bank spoke up and proved that the news was false. Tunisia denies CBDC The news was broken by Russian outlets Tass and Iz.ru, which highlighted that Russian company Universa helped the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) for the project. By November 11, the BCT denied all such claims regarding the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The bank declared that it is working on digital finance but it denied any connection with any firm, whether domestic or foreign.