Sweden’s central bank deputy governor recently updated the public on the country’s CBDC exploration.
Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDCs, were the talk of the town
for many in crypto and banking in 2020, with Sweden's prospective
e-krona one of the frontrunners. Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges
Riksbank, is investigating distributed ledger technology, or DLT, for
its CBDC proof-of-concept, the bank’s deputy governor confirmed today.
“The technology we use is the DLT called Corda,” Cecilia Skingsley, the deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, said
on Wednesday during a CfC St. Moritz conference panel. She did,
however, decline to turn the announcement into a full-bore advertisement
for Corda:
“The reason we use Corda is not that we
necessarily think that Corda is the best and optimal choice for an
eventual future e-krona, but when we did our procurement process, the
proposal from Accenture based on Corda we found was the one that fitted
our criteria the best.”
The Riksbank teamed up with
blockchain consulting outfit Accenture in late 2019 for its CBDC
endeavors. The bank has put in slightly more than 12 months of work on
its e-krona proof-of-concept, Skingsley noted.
The nation has been
working on a CBDC for years already. Last year yielded a number of
headlines on Sweden’s e-krona development. Back in December 2020, the
country’s leaders began evaluating the ramifications around introducing a CBDC.
Skingsley, however, clarified that the country has not yet confirmed its decision to issue a CBDC. She said:
“Although
we are exploring this issue, the Riksbank has not decided to issue an
e-krona. We are still in the phase when we are investigating different
options. So the Riksbank is building a proof-of-concept for an e-krona,
and we are doing this in order to get a better understanding of how an
e-krona could work in reality, and what trade-offs there are in choosing
between different properties or functionalities.”
The past year saw CBDC interest from many countries into what resembles a race, with China taking significant steps forward.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/sweden-is-working-with-dlt-for-its-cbdc-proof-of-concept
