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Switzerland took another step to clarify the roadmap for integrating central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) into the current financial system.
the swiss national bank (snb), the country's central bank, completed the second phase of project helvetia with its partners by integrating wholesale cbdc into the existing back-office systems and processes of five banks, namely citi, credit suisse, goldman sachs, hypothekarbank lenzburg and ubs.
The bank for international settlements and the swiss financial infrastructure service provider six have joined as snb partners in the helvetia phase ii project, that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Envisioned as a multi-stage investigation into the settlement of tokenized assets in the central bank currency, the helvetia project aims to prepare central banks for a future where dlt-based tokenized financial assets are the norm. The project focuses on the resolution of operational, legal and policy issues related to regulations. The official announcement indicates that the absence of an existing systemic platform based on dlt does not imply that there will not be such platforms in the future.
Switzerland has been an ideal country for experimentation since the issuance of a wholesale cbdc, which is specifically used for the settlement of interbank transfers and associated wholesale transactions, on a distributed dlt platform operated and held by a private business is possible under the law.
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The second phase of the helvetia project explored the setting up of interbanks, monetary policy and cross-border operations on six digital exchange (sdx) test systems, the swiss real-time gross settlement system—six interbank clearing (sic)—and the major banking systems, as advertised.
"to continue fulfilling their mandate to ensure monetary and financial stability, central banks must keep abreast of technological changes," noted Andrea Maechler, member of the SNB Board of Directors. she continued:
“project helvetia is a prime example of how to achieve this. it allowed the snb to deepen its understanding of how the safety of central bank money could be extended to tokenized asset markets.”
the first phase of project helvetia took place in december 2020 and focused on issuing a wholesale cbdc.
