The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has recently announced a new series of projects for its 2024 Innovation Hub programme. This initiative includes various projects, each focusing on financial technology and security aspects.
Green Finance
In 2024, the BIS Innovation Hub, Singapore Centre, is leading Project NGFS Data Directory 2.0, which aims to improve the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) data directory platform. This project seeks to make climate-related data more accessible and user-friendly.
In addition, the Hong Kong Centre is leading Project Symbiosis, which aims to utilise artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to enhance the transparency of supply chains, particularly in tracking Scope 3 emissions.
This project involves collaboration with various sectors to improve emission reporting, especially for smaller companies.
Payments and financial security
One of the key projects is Project Leap, overseen by the bank’s Eurosystem Centre. Following its initial success in phase I, where it established a quantum-safe communication channel between the central banks of France and Germany, phase II aims to develop further methods to protect payment systems against potential threats posed by quantum computers.
Project Promissa, a joint effort with the Swiss National Bank and the World Bank Group, is exploring the tokenisation of promissory notes, aiming to increase the efficiency and transparency of these financial instruments. The project is leveraging distributed ledger technology for this purpose.
Lastly, Project Hertha, initiated by the London Centre, focuses on using network analytics to identify patterns of financial crime in payment systems. The project aims to adapt to evolving financial crime typologies.
These new initiatives will be conducted alongside existing projects at various Innovation Hub Centres, including FuSSE, Gaia, Mandala, mBridge phase III, Nexus Phase III, Pyxtrial, Rio, and Viridis.
CBDCs are ongoing research focus
In 2023, the BIS Innovation Hub work programme completed 12 projects, with several more ongoing into 2024.
Project Aurum, also from the Hong Kong Centre, has entered a new phase focused on the privacy aspects of retail CBDCs. This project is a joint effort with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and is part of ongoing research into the development of CBDC systems, considering privacy concerns.
Other ongoing projects include Project Mandala, which focuses on automating compliance procedures in cross-border payments; Project Pyxtrail, which monitors the balance sheets of asset-backed stablecoins; and Project Cambridge, dealing with a multi-CBDC platform for cross-border payments.
Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik
