German Central Bank Puts Weight Behind Distributed Ledger Technology Over CBDC
(25 March 2021 – Europe) Germany's central bank says that successful tests of a project to implement a distributed ledger for electronic securities settlement should negate the need for a central bank digital currency.
Working with Germany’s Finance Agency, the Bundesbank says the project demonstrated that it is possible to establish a technological bridge between blockchain technology and conventional payment systems to settle securities in central bank money.
During testing, the Federal Government’s Finance Agency issued a ten-year Federal bond (Bund) in the DLT system, with primary and secondary market transactions also being settled using DLT with the aid of a 'trigger' solution and a transaction coordinator in Target2, the Eurosystem’s large-value payment system.
Market participants involved in conducting the experiment were Barclays, Citibank, Commerzbank, DZ Bank, Goldman Sachs and Société Générale.
Burkhard Balz, a member of the Bundesbank executive board responsible for general payments and settlement systems, says: “Following successful testing, the Eurosystem should be able to implement such a solution in a relatively short space of time - at least in far less time than it would take to issue central bank digital currency, for instance.”
It is no surprise that the Bundesbank is keen to see the fruits of its work on blockchain settlement comes to pass, having spent the past six years working on the project.
Deutsche Börse exec Stephan Leithner, comments: "“New technologies are a key component in creating infrastructures of tomorrow that meet the markets’ needs. This project marks a major step towards more efficient securities settlement and securities digitalisation by combining new technologies with existing infrastructures in a smart way.”
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