PARIS—The Bank of France has moved from conceptual and academic central bank digital currency experiments to trials in the field, CoinGeek reported.
The central bank has successfully completed a pilot trial with one of the largest banks and has planned eight more in coming months, the news outlet stated.
The Bank of France’s first deputy governor Denis Beau revealed the bank’s CBDC progress at the Paris Blockchain Week Summit 2020. Beau told the audience that the bank has been conducting trials on the feasibility of a CBDC, all while working to preserve the anchor role of central bank money, CoinGeek said.
“The way we experiment with CBDCs for wholesale transactions perfectly illustrates our choice to move from conceptual and academic considerations, to experiments in the field, hand in hand with market players, using a pragmatic, trial and error way of working,” Beau said.
Earlier Experiments
The Bank of France is reportedly seeking to determine how a CBDC can improve the fluidity and efficiency of payment and settlement systems.
Beau said that in May, the bank conducted its first experiment with a CBDC, working with France’s third-largest bank, the Société Générale. The experiment allowed the central bank to test three steps in a digital transaction—the tokenization of a security, the digital representation on a blockchain and the settlement of a transaction on the blockchain.