Participants chosen to explore new technologies to settle wholesale transactions in central bank money

3 April 2024

The Eurosystem will start exploratory work on new technologies for settlement of wholesale transactions in central bank money on 13 May 2024, in a collaboration between financial firms and central banks.

The Governing Council of the ECB approved the participation of ten market participants (entities with access to TARGET) and six market distributed ledger technology (DLT) operators. All had expressed their interest in participating in both trials with actual settlement in central bank money and experiments with mock settlement in a test environment. The following central banks from the euro area will also participate in the first wave of this exploratory work: Banque centrale du Luxembourg, Banque de France, Banca d'Italia, Deutsche Bundesbank and Oesterreichische Nationalbank.

These market participants and DLT operators participating in the exploratory work have proposed several business cases for wholesale transactions recorded on DLT platforms with settlement in central bank money. The use cases mainly explore the securities settlement cycle, such as delivery-versus-payment, secondary market transactions and lifecycle management of securities (e.g. coupon payments). Other use cases are also under consideration – these are related to cross-border payments, such as payment-versus-payment.

The list of participants in the first wave has already been finalised. However the call for expression of interest to join a second wave of trials and experiments between July and November 2024 will remain open until 30 April 2024.

Financial market stakeholders interested in applying can learn more about the Eurosystem’s exploratory work by viewing a recorded focus session. Questions can be submitted by email to ntwCeBM@ecb.europa.eu or one of the national central bank email addresses listed in the registration form. Interested parties must submit the required documentation and a proposed business case to their national central bank by 30 April 2024. The Eurosystem will assess respondents’ eligibility to take part in the exploratory work and the feasibility of proposals before the second wave of trials and experiments is initiated.