France tests central bank digital currency targeting debt market

Banque de France is about to complete a 10-month central bank digital currency (CBDC) testing experiment for its government bond deals with over 500 participating institutions.

IBM’s global director of financial markets, Soren Mortensen, described the project's success as beyond other past blockchain initiatives for its flawless trial of most central bank processes and central security depository.

He noted that there's the elimination of existing interim steps, such as the reconciliation between market intermediaries.

Isabelle Delorme, an executive of Euroclear, the Belgian financial service company that led the experiment, said that all participants concluded that CBDC can safely and securely settle central bank money.

During the experiment, the participants were made to trade some security tokens and government bonds was via a CBDC, which the French central bank supplied.

The process also involved testing CBDC use cases within the range of daily activities, such as issuing new bonds, utilizing the bonds for agreement repurchase, coupons payment, and deal redemption.

Euroclear utilized a system that IBM, an American technology giant, developed.

The other participants in the CBDC test were the French public debt office, Societe Generale, Credit Agricole CIB, BNP Paribas, and HSBC.