Banque de France tests digital currency-based securities settlement

The central bank of France — Banque de France — is continuing its work on the development of a European central bank digital currency (CBDC).

On Monday the bank officially announced the successful completion of a CBDC experiment with major Switzerland-based cryptocurrency bank SEBA.

Conducted in collaboration with SEBA, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, and Luxembourg central securities depository LuxCSD, the experiment used a CBDC to simulate the settlement and delivery of listed securities on TARGET2-Securities (T25), a European securities settlement engine. 

SEBA purchased securities from Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, with post-trade settlement managed by LuxCSD. 

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Nathalie Aufauvre, general director of financial stability and operations at Banque de France, said that the latest CBDC test demonstrated the possibilities for conventional finance systems and distributed systems to interact. “It also paves the way for other alliances in order to benefit from the opportunities offered by financial assets in a blockchain environment,” Aufauvre said.

The bank noted that the new CBDC test is part of an experimental CBDC program launched in March 2020, that aims to test CBDC integration for settlements. The program’s other experiments will continue until mid-2021 as Banque de France, in addition to other central banks in Europe, tests the viability of CBDCs.