Wholesale CBDC

In March 2020, Banque de France launched a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) experimentation programme.

In November 2021, Banque de France published a first report focusing on the integration of a CBDC into innovative procedures for the exchange and settlement of financial assets, based on new technologies such as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), and in a multi-currency and cross-border setting. The report covers nine experiments, selected from close to 40 proposals, which were conducted as of September 2020 in conjunction with domestic and international private sector players, as well as other central banks and public authorities.

Promoting the role of central bank money, the safest settlement asset.

The programme complements and builds on the investigation phase for a retail CBDC (digital euro) launched in July 2021 by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB), and in which the Banque de France is actively participating. The goal in both cases is to preserve the pivotal role of central bank money in the settlement of retail payments (digital euro) and transactions between financial intermediaries (wholesale CBDC), to ensure that financial transactions remain secure.