Bank of France’s deputy governor discusses CBDC progress. Bank of France Deputy Governor Denis Beau, speaking Thursday at the Paris Blockchain Summit, discussed the progress being made with the central bank digital currency (CBDC) and touched upon possible regulatory changes and the legal framework.
Beau said there has been a “hands-on approach” with the bank’s experiment to debut a digital euro for the general public. Earlier this year, the Bank of France published a request for proposals for CBDC “experiment” applications. The objective of the project was to help France’s central bank understand the threats and processes of CBDCs and to contribute to the digital cash conversation in the eurozone.
In May, the bank began working closely with Societe Generale to trial digital transactions, tokenization of securities and the settlement of a private blockchain transaction.
The bank is currently analyzing whether tokenization can help with cross-border payments, which Beau describes as being “costly, incur long delays before settlement, and give rise to uncertainties” on anti-money laundering checks.
In his remarks, Beau said “Upcoming CBDC experiments – there will be eight of them – will help us to investigate not only the potential of technology but also to question the players in the ecosystem on what tomorrow’s landscape could look like, on subjects as fundamental as the methods of exchanging financial instruments for CBDCs, the improvement of the conditions for executing cross-border payments or new ways of making CBDCs available to financial sector players. In turn, these experiments will lead us to assess whether the regulatory framework currently in force needs to be adapted since we are carrying out these experiments within the current legal framework.”
[image: Anthony Delanoix]
