The central bank of France – Banque de France – is reportedly making progress regarding the development of its European central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Specifically, an official notice reportedly revealed the successful finalization of a CBDC experiment, with the high-profile crypto bank SEBA from Switzerland. 

Carried out via a partnership with SEBA, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, and Luxembourg central securities depository LuxCSD. The experiment employed a CBDC, dedicated to the simulation of settlement and delivery of listed securities on TARGET2-Securities (T25) – an engine for dealing with European securities settlement. 

SEBA reportedly finalized the acquisition of securities from Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, with LuxCSD in charge of managing  post-trade settlement. 

Nathalie Aufauvre, general director of financial stability and operations at Banque de France, reportedly remarked that the most recent CBDC test is a demonstration of all potential opportunities for interaction, dedicated to conventional finance and distributed systems. 

“It also paves the way for other alliances in order to benefit from the opportunities offered by financial assets in a blockchain environment,” Aufauvre reportedly remarked. 

The bank additionally revealed that the new CBDC test is included within the scope of an experimental CBDC program, rolled out in March last year, designed to run testing for CBDC integration for settlements. 

Other different experiments of the program will reportedly be ongoing until the middle of the year, since Banque de France, apart from several other central banks throughout Europe, to run testing of how viable CBDCs are.