Bank of France starts experimenting with digital currency for interbank settlements

The Bank of France has announced the launch of a pilot program to explore the prospects of introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) into the EU's interbank settlement system.

The Central Bank has already begun to accept applications forDigital Euro-enabled applications for exploring innovative clearing and settlement procedures for tokenized financial assets. At the same time, the Central Bank does not impose the use of any specific technologies (for example, blockchain) within the framework of the experimental program.

The collection of applications will last until May 15, and by June 10, the BankFrance will select no more than 10 separate proposals from EU residents. The main criterion for evaluating decisions will be their innovative nature.

The program has three goals: simulation of interbank settlements based on CBDC, assessment of benefits and analysis of potential risks of their use. As part of the experiments, they will study options for the use of digital currency in operations with securities, digital assets or other digital currencies.

The results of the studies will become the basis for discussing the prospects for using CBDC throughout the European Union, and not the Bank of France itself.

Regulators in many countries are gradually reviewingtheir attitude towards innovative financial instruments and begin to actively study them. Recently, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation prepared a bill that will allow participants in “regulatory sandboxes” to experiment with blockchain and cryptocurrency.

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