Banque De France Has Finished CBDC Trial

Banque de France has successfully conducted its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) trial, with a blockchain platform for interbank settlement, CoinDesk reported.

A statement from the bank said the pilot involved a settlement on a private blockchain, which U.K. startup SETL provided, of around 2 million euros (about $2.4 million), per CoinDesk.

Banque de France used SETL’s fund management platform Iznes, as well as Citi, CACEIS, Groupama AM, OFI AM, and DXC, for the first part of the settlement of funds using CBDC, CoinDesk reported. There are also more experiments in progress that will continue throughout the year. The process will be a boost for the research around digital coins.

Francois Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Banque de France, has spoken positively about CDBCs, CoinDesk reported.

In 2020, the bank put out a request for applications for a CBDC experiment. The point of the project was to help the central bank in France grasp the ins and outs of the new form of currency, which has begun to sprout up all over the world as governments conduct similar experiments.

PYMNTS reported that China is a prominent country that has been conducting these experiments for months, including multiple lotteries in which random citizens could win 200 digital yuan each for various shopping purposes, so the government could see how it worked out.

In the second trial, concluded in December, the scale was larger to help see what would result from a larger amount of the population using the coin as scale is a noteworthy way to see how consumer behavior is changing in bigger pools.

China’s experiments had set something of a blueprint for CBDCs in other countries, although the market is still in the works for the most part.