HSBC and IBM announced the successful test of an advanced token and digital wallet settlement capability encompassing direct transactions between two central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in a hybrid cloud environment. The project was initiated by Banque de France as part of a multi-pronged program to explore the potential of the digital euro.
Several previous initiatives have individually demonstrated support for CDBCs, securities and/or foreign exchange. The experiment, which was designed and implemented within a four-month period, successfully executed across ledgers in support of such a complex multi-asset transactional scenario.
The experiment successfully tested an end-to-end transactional lifecycle covering CBDCs (minting and allocation), eBonds (Delivery Versus Payment (DVP) across primary issuance and secondary trading and coupon payments), and foreign exchange (pricing and Payment Versus Payment (PVP) settlement).
It was conducted in a hybrid cloud environment incorporating public and private clouds and on premise data sources. Distributed ledgers based on IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric and R3’s Corda were integrated using IBM Research’s Weaver interoperability tool.
Mark Williamson, managing director GFX eRisk in Partnerships & Propositions at HSBC, said in a statement: “Our collaboration with IBM on this initiative has resulted in this milestone of streamlining front-to-back securities and foreign exchange DVP and PVP settlement processes. Interoperability across different DLTs and technologies was key in demonstrating how to save time, reduce market risk and improve security for transactions between central banks, commercial banks and in time our clients around the world.”
Likhit Wagle, general manager for Global Banking & Financial Markets at IBM, said in a statement: “As central banks around the world begin to explore the potential for CBDC to bring greater transparency and security to financial transactions, this initiative provides a comprehensive roadmap.”