The European Central Bank is seeking expressions of interest from financial market participants to engage in trials for new technologies related to wholesale central bank money settlement.
The practical exploratory work will involve trials with central bank money (CeBM) settlement and mock settlement experiments conducted in a test environment. The trials will operate across three central bank platforms provided by Deutsche Bundesbank, Banca d’Italia, and Banque de France. They will focus on delivery-versus-payment (DVP) in CeBM for DLT-based digital assets denominated in euros, along with various operations associated with the securities lifecycle management.
Additionally, the exploratory work may explore cross-currency and cross-border payments in CeBM, as well as automated wholesale payments in relation to commercial banks’ use of “deposit tokens” that require CeBM wholesale settlement.
Financial market stakeholders interested in participating in these trials and experiments, scheduled between May 2024 and November 2024, are encouraged to reach out to the respective national central banks by 31 January 2024.
The Eurosystem commenced its initial exploratory efforts regarding the use of DLT for wholesale settlement in April. The European Central Bank will provide insights into its findings during a focus session on 15 December 2023, from 9:00 to 14:00 CET. This session will outline the objectives of the work and provide details on the planned trials and experiments, highlighting the three potential solutions.