The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, the Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Negara Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the South African Reserve Bank has developed two prototypes for a shared platform that could enable international settlements using digital currencies issued by multiple central banks (mCBDCs).
Led by the Innovation Hub’s Singapore Center, Project Dunbar proved that financial institutions could use CBDCs issued by participating central banks to transact directly with each other on a shared platform.
This has the potential to reduce reliance on intermediaries and, correspondingly, the costs and time taken to process cross-border transactions.
The project was organised along three workstreams; one focusing on high-level functional requirements and design; and the other two concurrent technical streams that developed prototypes on Corda and Partior.
The details and conclusions of the project were published in a report.
“A common platform is the most efficient model for payments connectivity but is also the most challenging to achieve. Project Dunbar demonstrated that key concerns of trust and shared control can be addressed through governance mechanisms enforced by robust technological means, laying the foundation for the development of future global and regional platforms,”
said Andrew McCormack, Head of the BIS Innovation Hub Center in Singapore.
“Project Dunbar marks a key milestone in advancing the efficiency of cross border payments globally. The strong collaboration between participating central banks, commercial banks and technology solution providers has established the foundation for developing future ready payment rails. We look forward to participating in subsequent phases of this bold endeavour,”
said Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore.