Swift said that 18 central and commercial banks found “clear potential and value” in its API-based Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) connector.
Following a 12-week period of collaborative sandbox testing, almost 5,000 transactions were simulated between two different blockchain networks and with existing fiat-based payment systems.
Swift said in a statement that its “participants expressed strong support for the solution’s continued development, noting that it enabled seamless exchange of CBDCs, even those built on different platforms”.
This follows Swift’s announcement in October that it had developed a solution to enable CBDCs to move between DLT-based and fiat-based systems using existing financial infrastructure.
The sandbox testing was set up so that central and commercial banks could experiment with the solution to validate its effectiveness and share insight to guide its development.
Tom Zschach
Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at Swift said,
“Our experiments have shown the critical role that Swift can play in a financial ecosystem in which digital and traditional currencies co-exist.
Many participants have made clear their desire for continued collaboration on interoperability, and this is particularly pleasing.”
Over the coming months Swift will develop a beta version of the solution for payments that can be tested further by central banks.
A second phase of sandbox testing will also be held, in which the Swift community can collaborate further with a focus on new use cases, including in securities settlement (such as cross-asset exchange), trade finance, and conditional payments.
Sandbox participants included the Banque de France, the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, NatWest, Royal Bank of Canada, SMBC, Société Générale, Standard Chartered and UBS.
An additional four central banks were observers, providing input and feedback without participating in the sandbox.
Participants processed a total of 4,736 transactions between the Quorum and Corda blockchain networks, and between Corda and a fiat currency.
