The ECB launches the second phase of testing a financial system based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). A range of major financial institutions will participate in the trials.
The European Central Bank (ECB) announced the start of the second phase of its program dedicated to testing the DLT system. The main goal is to study wholesale transaction settlements using central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The testing will run from July to November 2024, involving three central banks and 48 private financial companies.
Among the participants are some of the world’s largest banks, including:
- JP Morgan;
- HSBC;
- BNP Paribas;
- Bank of New York Mellon;
- Société Générale;
- ABN AMRO, etc.
The second phase will expand the scope of research to cover internal payments within the Eurozone, PVP operations using foreign currencies, as well as a wide range of scenarios related to securities with both real and mock settlement. Additionally, it’ll explore issues of interoperability between various payment systems.
It’s worth noting that the ECB launched the program to test the capabilities of DLT systems in working with tokenized assets and the digital euro in April 2024. The first phase of the program involved the D7 trading platform by Clearstream and several central banks from European countries.
