Yesterday, state-owned French development bank Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC) issued a €100m ($108m) digital bond settled using the Banque de France’s DL3S DLT platform using its pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC). The transaction formed part of the European Central Bank’s wholesale DLT settlement trials which are due to end this month.
The Banque de France avoids using the term wholesale CBDC, instead referring to it as a tokenized representation of central bank money.
For the CDC issuance, it required synchronizing the issuance of the digitally native note (DNN) on Euroclear’s D-FMI platform with the settlement on the central bank’s DL3S. The DNN was issued in bearer form under French law.
“Choosing (the) Banque de France’s full DLT interoperability solution for settling the cash leg of this issuance stresses the importance of tokenised Central Bank Money for the development of the tokenisation of finance,” said Emmanuelle Assouan, Director General Financial Stability and Operations at Banque de France.
“The operation, performed under CSDR, allowed (the) Banque de France to enrich its connectivity solutions by setting-up a new interoperability link between the 2 DLTs, on top of the HTLC and SWIFT protocols.” HTLC refers to a Hashed Timelock Contract which is an escrow-like mechanism in which the money is locked on one DLT, and the asset on the other. If the money is not claimed during the timelock period, the locks can be released.
Euroclear and the central bank worked together on the interoperability solution.
BNP Paribas’ Securities Services was the issuing agent for the transaction, with Crédit Agricole CIB and Natixis CIB as dealers.
Paris Europlace, the French association that supports the Paris financial market, created a working group of banks and asset managers to help in coordination.
ECB trials and France’s DL3S
Meanwhile, the French pilot CBDC solution has been used for some other digital bond issuances. They include a €30 million sovereign bond issued by Slovenia and a small ABN AMRO commercial paper issuance. There were also several other DL3S experiments that involved simulations.
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