Bank for International Settlements to start testing digital national currencies

The project will run until the end of this year, with a final report expected in Q1 2023

30.09.2022 - 07:30

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What’s new? The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the central banks of Israel, Norway, and Sweden are launching Project Icebreaker, a joint study of the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for international retail payments and remittances. The initiative will further explore the technology, architecture, and design, as well as explore related regulatory issues. The regulator is considering implementing CBDC for cross-border payments. The project will run through the end of this year, with a final report expected in Q1 2023.

Information on the BIS website

What is known about the project? Project Icebreaker is a collaboration between the Bank of Israel, the Central Bank of Norway, Sveriges Riksbank, and BIS Innovation Hub Nordic Centre. It aims to develop a hub to which the participating banks will connect their national trial systems of CBDCs. Its purpose is to test specific key functions and the technological feasibility of interlinking different national CBDC systems.

On September 22, it became known that the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) will make a pilot launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), previously planned for November. The authorities noted that the crypto-rial is designed to help improve access to finance, but the asset is not positioned as a competitor to major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin because it is not anonymous and centralized.

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