Last updated on November 17th, 2022 at 12:46 pm
The governor of the French central bank, François Villeroy de Galhau, announced on July 12th that the French central bank, Banque de France, has begun the second phase of testing for a wholesale CBDC, which may be used to simplify domestic and cross-border transactions between banks. CBDCs are digital copies of a country’s sovereign currency, which is the Euro in France. He also stated that the bank hopes to have a fully operational wholesale CBDC ready to launch by 2023.
“We want to get closer to a viable prototype, testing it in practice with more private actors and more foreign central banks in the second half of 2022 and in 2023,” Galhau, the Banque de France’s governor, said during a speech at the 2022 Paris Europlace International Financial Forum on Tuesday.
The investigation phase is expected to last 24 months and will address critical design and distribution challenges. A digital euro should be able to meet the requirements of its citizens while also assisting in the prevention of criminal activities and any negative impact on financial stability and monetary policy. This will not affect any future decision on the potential issue of a digital euro, which will be made later. In any case, a digital euro would supplement rather than replace a currency.
He continued, “The Eurosystem is looking at the scope and design of a digital euro central bank digital currency (CBDC). The main rationale for a retail digital euro is to maintain the role of central bank money in the economy even as it is “threatened by the digital revolution.”
Banque de France began experimenting with wholesale CBDC in March 2020, wrapping up its first stage of experimentation in December 2021.
If you would like to read more news articles like this, visit DeFi Planet and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
“Take control of your crypto portfolio with MARKETS PRO, DeFi Planet’s suite of analytics tools.”
