This article is adapted from CoinDesk Brasil, a partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

The Central Bank of Brazil has chosen nine partners to help develop a digital real, Brazil's central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Among the partners are crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin, Santander Brasil, Itaú Unibanco and Aave, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform.

The initiative received 47 project proposals from Brazil, Germany, the U.S., Israel, Mexico, Portugal, the U.K. and Sweden, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday, noting that it is seeking to evaluate use cases for a CBDC and assess its technological feasibility.

In November, the central bank said it planned to start a CBDC pilot program in 2022 and introduce a final version in 2024.

"Given the large number of projects of relevance and interest for the development of the real digital initiative, the selection process sought a balance between the diversity of the portfolio of proposals submitted to the lab and the need for detailed monitoring of the chosen projects," the central bank said in a statement.

An implementation phase for the selected projects will begin on March 28 and last until July 27, the central bank noted.

This article was translated by Andrés Engler and edited by CoinDesk. The original Portuguese article can be found here.