The Bank for International Settlements has inaugurated its European Hub in Paris and Frankfurt, focusing on decentralized finance, wholesale CBDCs, cybersecurity, and green finance.
The Hub will feature a multi-disciplinary team collaborating with central banks throughout the region to address pressing technological challenges in the international financial system. Four distinct projects have been defined for the Hub’s initiatives:
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Project Leap aims to investigate and test cryptographic solutions that can endure the enhanced processing power of quantum computers. In partnership with Banque de France and Deutsche Bundesbank, the goal is to evaluate use cases in various payment systems and analyze the impact of new quantum-resistant cryptographic protocols on their performance.
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Project Gaia examines the application of natural language processing, optical character recognition, and machine learning to extract climate-related data from corporate reports. Collaborating with Banco de España and Deutsche Bundesbank, this project will develop an open-source database of corporate documents, a full-text search engine for sustainability-related disclosures, and data visualization tools for assessing climate and environmental risks.
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Project Atlas, in partnership with Deutsche Bundesbank and De Nederlandsche Bank, aims to establish an open-source data platform that provides information on market capitalization, economic activity, and international flows of crypto assets.
- Project Mariana investigates automated market makers for the cross-border exchange of hypothetical Swiss franc, euro, and Singapore dollar wholesale CBDCs. This project is a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub, Banque de France, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Swiss National Bank.
The Eurosystem Hub is part of a broader global initiative by central banks to address emerging technologies and is connected to a network that includes locations in Hong Kong, London, Singapore, Stockholm, and Switzerland.