Swiss National Bank and BIS concludes two digital currency proof-of-concept. The Bank for International Settlements and the Swiss National Bank are exploring the benefits of implementing the digital currency of the central bank using blockchain technology.
According to a Dec. 3 announcement, the BIS Innovation Hub Swiss Centre, or BISIH, has successfully completed two proofs-of-concept linking existing payment systems to a distributed ledger and settling tokenized assets with a wholesale CBDC.
The new initiative, known as the “Project Helvetia,” is a joint venture between BISIH, SNB and Switzerland’s top stock exchange, Six Group.
The exchange stated that Project Helvetia explored the technological and legal feasibility of transferring digital assets through issuing a wholesale CBDC onto Six’s proprietary distributed digital asset platform, Six Digital Exchange. The new platform is expected to launch in the near future, offering issuance, trading, settlement, management and custody of tokenized assets.
The financial institutions noted that the experiment should not be interpreted as an indication that Switzerland’s central bank will issue a wholesale CBDC.
Andréa Maechler, a member of the SNB’s governing board, stressed that the Swiss central bank does not want to miss opportunities to improve the financial system with emerging technologies “Irrespective of which technologies the financial markets adopt next, the safety and reliability of Swiss financial infrastructure must be preserved. If [distributed ledger technology] can deliver significant improvements in securities trading and settlement, then the SNB will be prepared.”
[image: Claudio Schwarz]
