The Bank of Spain has invited interested parties to participate in the wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiments, for which applications will close at the end of January 2023 and tests will run from April to the end of 2023. The tests of the central bank are independent of the digital euro initiatives that are part of the Eurosystem.

He is interested in evaluating the degree to which a tokenized wholesale CBDC can improve the “efficiency, agility and security” of financial market infrastructures. More specifically, you want to quantify the benefits.

The essays will cover three areas. First of all, he wants to simulate the operation of a wholesale CBDC, allowing interbank payments. Second, it wants to explore the use of a wholesale CBDC for securities settlement with delivery-versus-payment (DvP) transactions.

The third area of ​​exploration looks at the advantages and disadvantages of a wholesale CBDC for both the central bank and the financial system. The benefits include efficiencies, resiliency, and security. On the other hand, there could be additional costs, performance or scalability issues.

Analysis of the benefits of CBDCs may also cover experiments in cross-border payments (multi-CBDCs) with other central banks. And the Bank of Spain is interested in exploring the issue of interoperability if a CBDC token is used to settle traditional financial securities on another platform. Or if you settle tokenized digital assets on a platform that uses a different blockchain technology than the central bank platform.

One of his areas of interest is discussing distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the pros and cons of a private, hybrid, and public network.

Elsewhere, IberPay and several Spanish banks are running experiments in preparation for a possible digital retail euro.

Banque de France conducted numerous wholesale CBDC experiments in 2021 and plans to launch a pilot in 2023. With the launch of the EU DLT Pilot Scheme, wholesale CBDCs are seen as crucial for settling blockchain-based digital securities.