Banque de France awarded by the Central Banking Fintech and Regtech Global Awards for its experimentations on central bank digital currency

The Banque de France received the CBDC infrastructure category award for its experimentations on central bank digital currency. 

Nine CBDC experiments were successfully performed, with the focus of projects ranging from securities settlement using distributed ledger technology-based platforms, to cross-border payments using wholesale CBDCs.

Governor François Villeroy de Galhau during his speech said: “The experiments conducted by Banque de France demonstrated that a wholesale CBDC could significantly improve cross-border and cross-currency payments through the optimisation of payment processes". He added "the work conducted by the international community, notably under the aegis of the G20, should further explore this dimension: our ability to improve cross-border transactions will be a major challenge in the coming years.”

“The level of mobilisation of all public and private players involved in the experimentations has been key to finalise the nine experimentations in record time – in just one year,” mentioned Adeline Bachellerie, Head of Digital Currency and Innovation, who received the trophy during the reception that took place in Brussels.

“The Banque de France’s ambitious programme resulted in important contributions to wholesale CBDC, cross-border transactions and settlement exploration. I look forward to learning from the results of its future partnerships. The Banque de France’s approach exemplifies one of the best examples we saw of a collaborative approach to technological advancement” said Joasia E. Popowicz, Associate Editor, Central Banking Institute.