The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the central banks of Israel, Norway, and Sweden have completed Project Icebreaker, which examined the potential benefits and challenges of using retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in international payments. The project, a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub Nordic Centre, Bank of Israel, Norges Bank, and Sveriges Riksbank, tested the technical feasibility of conducting cross-border and cross-currency transactions between different experimental retail CBDC systems. The project explored a hub-and-spoke solution for interlinking domestic systems, allowing for competitive foreign exchange conversion rates and the use of bridge currencies. It also demonstrated that the hub-and-spoke model can reduce settlement and counterparty risk and enable near-instant cross-border transactions. The outcomes of Project Icebreaker provide valuable insights for central banks considering the implementation of retail CBDCs and promote scalability, interoperability, and simplicity.
HomeCBDCBIS ProjectsExperiment for a New Architecture for Cross-Border Retail CBDCs Concludes in Project...