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The Korean Ministry of Science and Information and Communications Technology (MSIT) and the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) launched an investment project to promote the domestic blockchain industry. It is committing Won 20 billion ($14.5 million) across 14 projects, divided into two public sector and the private sector parts. One of the public sector projects includes the development of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC)-based digital voucher management platform by the Bank of Korea. This platform will allow various voucher programs to be used on mobile devices, improving the efficiency and accessibility of digital payments. https://www.msit.go.kr/bbs/view.do?sCode=user&mId=113&mPid=238&pageIndex=2&bbsSeqNo=94&nttSeqNo=3184609&searchOpt=ALL&searchTxt=

This VoxEU/CEPR article argues that there is no obvious justification for retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) in most advanced economy (AE) jurisdictions where a large share of the population has access to bank accounts. From a user perspective, such CBDC do not seem attractive enough to compete successfully with private bank deposits and private retail payment systems like PayPal. The key advantage of CBDC, its absolute safety, is irrelevant for retail payments. However, for emerging and developing economies (EMDEs), retail CBDC could be a suitable tool to approach the problem of a large share of the population being unbanked. However, in both AE and EMDE jurisdictions, there is a huge potential for wholesale CBDC as a store of value for retail payment service providers.

On June 18, the Banque de France successfully conducted a central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiment with SEBA Bank, as part of the experimental program launched in March 2020. The CBDC was used to simulate the settlement of listed securities and trigger their delivery in the TARGET2-Securities (T2S) test environment, using T2S's conditional securities delivery (CoSD) feature. The Banque de France simulated CBDC issuance on a public blockchain, preserving control and confidentiality of transactions using a dedicated smart contract. https://www.banque-france.fr/en/communique-de-presse/banque-de-france-conducts-new-central-bank-digital-currency-experiment

The Reserve Bank of Australia is partnering with Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual and ConsenSys Software, a blockchain technology company, on a collaborative project to explore the potential use and implications of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) using distributed ledger technology (DLT). A proof-of-concept (POC) will be used to explore the implications of atomic delivery-versus-payment and other potential programmability and automation features of tokenised CBDC and financial assets. It will start by funding, settling and repaying tokenised syndicated loans on an Ethereum-based platform.

"Roxe's full stack solution knits together issuance, management, distribution, and interoperation of different CBDCs with banks, central banks, cross-border money transfer companies, and peer-to-peer payment providers in a single network. This is an audacious vision, to rework the global payments system. DeFi and CeFi are losing their distinction. The global payments system needs a rework, integrating CBDCs into it and providing payment rails come as the first step in true digital asset trading towards a global capital market."

Global payment network Roxe has recruited Andreas Jobst, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Senior Economist. As Roxe's chief currency economist, Jobst will be tasked with helping to scale Roxe's Bitcoin blochchain-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) project. The CBDC Plus Program appears to be a wholesale CBDC designed for cross-border interoperability among financial institutions.

Oliver Wyman and JP Morgan published a joint report exploring how a multiple central bank digital currency (mCBDC) network could save corporates money. They estimate that corporate wholesale payments amount to $24 trillion a year and cost $120 billion, which could fall to $100 billion using an mCBDC network. The savings will come at the expense of banks, via the loss of correspondent banking fees and the reduction of corporate overnight balances by up to $10 billion. Plus, banks will have to pay to operate two sets of cross-border payment systems in parallel during this transition.

The BIS Innovation Hub published a brochure for its mBridge project with a comprehensive list of use cases contributed by 22 commercial banks across four different jurisdictions (China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates). The mBridge trial platform has shown that CBDCs can substantially increase the speed of cross-border payments from multiple days to near real-time, while also reducing cost. The project is using an agile and iterative development approach, plus a modular bricks design.

Banca d'Italia and Deutsche Bundesbank have been ramping up their efforts to utilize distributed ledger technology (DLT) in central bank money settlements. The initiatives aim to complement current central bank money settlement practices with programmable trigger mechanisms that connect DLT-based assets, like tokenized securities, and cash to be settled via conventional payments systems. This could be seen as complementary to the Digital Euro, which is currently under consideration.

Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) is reportedly partnering with Seattle-based KaJ Labs, to launch the trail of its central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, there's no mention of it on the BCB website, and the Kaj Labs press release makes it sound more like the firm has merely initiated discussions with the BCB. Also, it's unclear whether they're discussing retail of wholesale CBDC. It sounds more like the latter, with a focus on using DLT to tokenize and settle bonds.

The Banque de France published a report on its series of experiments with a wholesale central bank digital currency (#CBDC) but says its work has also thrown up new questions. The tests focused on ways of integrating CBDC into innovative procedures for the exchange and settlement of financial assets, based on new technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), and in multi-currency and cross-border settings. The report covers nine experiments which were conducted as of September 2020 in conjunction with domestic and international private sector players, as well as other central banks and public authorities. Numerous technological partners were also involved, enabling the experiments to explore a broad range of technologies.

A consortium of institutions led by Euroclear have completed a test run of the use of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) for settling French treasury bonds on a blockchain. The experiment, using technology from IBM and commissioned by the Banque de France included Agence France Trésor, BNP Paribas CIB, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, Societe Generale. The trial is part of a wider Banque de France initiative commissioned in March 2020, to test the integration of a central bank digital currency for the exchange and settlement of tokenised financial assets between financial intermediaries.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) revealed, in its submission to the Australian Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology, that it has been conducting research on wholesale CBDC, in its in-house Innovation Lab. This included the development in 2019 of a limited proof-of-concept of a distributed ledger technology (DLT) based interbank payment system using a tokenized form of CBDC backed by exchange settlement account (ESA) balances held at the RBA. Currently, the RBA is close to finalising a project with a number of external parties that extends the earlier proof-of-concept in a number of ways, including to incorporate tokenized financial assets. The project explores the implications of delivery-versus-payment (DVP) settlement on a DLT platform as well as other programmability features of tokenized CBDC and financial assets.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), in its 2021 Annual Report, reiterated its assessment that a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) may be more helpful in addressing frictions that affect the efficiency and safety of wholesale payments involving cross-border fund transfers, equity securities transactions settlement and intraday liquidity facilities.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has decided to pursue a wholesale CBDC pilot project as part of its efforts to promote the stability of the country's payment system. Dubbed CBDCPh, it will test the use of CBDCs for large-value financial transactions on a 24/7 basis across a limited number of financial institutions.

London-based SETL will be working with SWIFT, Clearstream, Northern Trust and other market participants to explore the issuance, delivery versus payment (DVP), and redemption processes to support a frictionless and seamless tokenized asset market. The experiments will use both established forms of payment and central bank digital currency (CBDC). SETL had previously been part of a Banque de France experiment in which shares of a money market fund were subscribed and then redeemed on the IZNES Platform using wholesale CBDC tokens created by the Banque.

"A reader asked me to take a look at Project Jura, an experiment in cross-border settlement using distributed ledgers. A joint effort by the BIS, the Banque de France and the Swiss National Bank, along with three commercial banks and several technology providers, the project executed a series of transactions testing the cross-border exchange of money and securities using digital assets."

The Bank of England dismissed the option of a domestic wholesale CBDC, because the private sector can achieve a similar result themselves. Governor Bailey, at a UK House of Lords Economic Committee meeting, highlighted that banks have existing access to central bank money through its real time gross settlement system. Also, the Bank has introduced an omnibus account that would enable the banks to use digital coins between themselves that settle with the Bank of England. It might also allow nonbanks, like Fnality, to create wholesale digital currency backed by central bank money

Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) is starting to work on the second phase of its wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) Project Delphi. The first phase focused on simulating delivery versus payment for an Austrian Treasury Bond issued on a blockchain and settled by commercial banks on the same platform using CBDC. The second phase will explore more advanced functionality, business models as well as non-fungible tokens and DeFi.

The Bank for International Settlements, Bank of France and Swiss National Bank have shown that wholesale CBDC can be used to settle transactions between financial institutions across borders. The recently completed Project Jura explored settling FX transactions in euro and Swiss franc wholesale CBDC, and issuing, transferring and redeeming tokenized euro-denominated French commercial paper between French and Swiss financial institutions. Project Jura was conducted in collaboration with Accenture, Credit Suisse, Natixis, R3, SIX Digital Exchange and UBS.