The Banque de France has chosen eight financial and tech players as potential partners to test the applications for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) interbank settlements.
The named partners are Accenture, Euroclear, HSBC, Iznes, LiquidShare, ProsperUS, SEBA Bank, and Société Générale.
Notably, the French central bank already tested digital euro in a real-world transaction with Société Générale and is now expanding the same with other partners.
Monday’s announcement detailed that the experiments with the chosen candidates will focus on three areas – to explore new methods of exchanging financial instruments (excluding crypto-assets) for central bank money; to test the regulation in digital central bank money to improve the conditions of execution of cross-border payments, and revisit the methods of making central bank money available.
The monetary regulator detailed that it will initiate working with the partners in the “coming days” and carry out the experiments over the “coming months,” without providing any specific dates.
