French Central Bank Names 8 Partners for Digital Euro Testing

The Banque de France has chosen eight financial and tech players as potential partners to test the applications for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) interbank settlements.

The named partners are Accenture, Euroclear, HSBC, Iznes, LiquidShare, ProsperUS, SEBA Bank, and Société Générale.

Notably, the French central bank already tested digital euro in a real-world transaction with Société Générale and is now expanding the same with other partners.

Monday’s announcement detailed that the experiments with the chosen candidates will focus on three areas – to explore new methods of exchanging financial instruments (excluding crypto-assets) for central bank money; to test the regulation in digital central bank money to improve the conditions of execution of cross-border payments; and revisit the methods of making central bank money available.

No specific timeline yet

The monetary regulator detailed that it will initiate working with the partners in the “coming days” and carry out the experiments over the “coming months”, without providing any specific dates.

The lessons learned from these experiments will constitute a direct contribution to the more global reflection led by the Eurosystem on the interest of a central bank digital currency, the central bank explained.

“We at SEBA Bank are very proud of this achievement, and to be selected by Banque de France honors us. It is a proof of concept that our service offering and deep expertise of the industry is of great value and a relevant contribution to develop the ecosystem of digital currencies and assets,” Guido Bühler, CEO at SEBA Bank, said in a statement.

Apart from France, other European central banks and banking bodies are also eager to test the concept of CBDC to check the feasibility of its implementation in the existing monetary system. However, there are still some strong voices against the introduction of digital currency.