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Andrea Maechler, a member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, or SNB, has reportedly changed her position on the central bank's issuance of a digital franc.
According to a Tuesday report from Reuters journalist John Revill, Maechler said officials at the country’s central bank “believe the risks outweigh the benefits” when it comes to CBDCs. The board member said that the fact that the general public uses a digital franc in day-to-day transactions would likely not help to promote financial inclusion in switzerland, where virtually all of the workforce already has access to bank accounts.
"This does not mean that NBS is not interested in CBDCs.
The governing board member’s statement comes following the SNB announcing it had integrated a wholesale CBDC into the banking systems of five commercial banks in Switzerland. At the time, Maechler seemed to encourage implementation, claiming that "central banks must remain abreast of technological change" in an effort to ensure monetary and financial stability.
Testing the introduction of a wholesale CBDC was part of the second phase of the helvetia project, an initiative to prepare central banks for tokenized financial assets based on distributed register technology. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the SNB integrated wholesale CBDC into the existing systems and processes of citi, Swiss Credit, goldman sachs, hypothekarbank Lenzburg and ubs.
Related: Bitcoin briefly flippens Swiss franc after rally to new ATH
Switzerland was also a testing ground for many crypto projects and products in 2021. In September, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority approved one of the first crypto funds to operate in the country, the Crypto Market Index Fund. The SIX Swiss Exchange currently lists several crypto exchanged-traded products in addition to its own plans to launch a digital asset marketplace and central securities depository.
