Swiss wholesale CBDC pilot kicks off in alliance with central, commercial banks

November 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Banks

The Swiss wCBDC pilot project will be hosted on SDX and use the infrastructure of Swiss Interbank Clearing.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB), six commercial banks and the SIX Swiss Exchange will work together to pilot the issuance of wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the nation, officially known as the Swiss franc wCBDC.

The pilot project dedicated to wholesale CBDC, named Helvetia Phase III, will test the efficacy of a Swiss Franc wCBDC in settling digital securities transactions. The pilot builds on the findings of the first two phases — Helvetia Phases I and II — conducted by the BIS Innovation Hub, the SNB and SIX.

The six banks involved in the pilot — Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Basler Kantonalbank, Commerzbank, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, UBS and Zürcher Kantonalbank — are also existing SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) member banks.

The Swiss wCBDC pilot project will be hosted on SDX and use the infrastructure of Swiss Interbank Clearing. According to the announcement, the pilot will run from December 2023 to June 2024.

“The pilot’s objective is to test, in a live production environment, the settlement of primary and secondary market transactions in wCBDC.”

During this timeframe, participating banks will “issue digital Swiss franc bonds, which will be settled against wCBDC on a delivery-versus-payment basis.” All transactions conducted in this test environment will be collateralized by digital bonds and settled on SDX in wCBDC.

Parallel to in-house CBDC efforts, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, along with the Financial Services Agency of Japan and the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, partnered with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to conduct various crypto pilot initiatives.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the authorities specifically seek to carry out pilots related to fixed income, foreign exchange and asset management products. “As the pilots grow in scale and sophistication, there is a need for closer cross-border collaboration among policymakers and regulators,” the MAS stated.

Magazine: Slumdog billionaire: Incredible rags-to-riches tale of Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal

Euro Drops to 20-Year Low Against the US Dollar, Tapping $1.028 per Unit — Analyst Says Parity Is Imminent

July 5, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Swiss public exchange lists two new carbon-neutral crypto ETPs

April 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The BTCO2 and ETH2O ETPs seek to expose investors to the world's two most valuable cryptocurrencies while offsetting their carbon footprints.

Two new carbon-neutral cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) have been launched on the Six Swiss Exchange, bringing the total number of crypto ETPs to 155.

The SIX Swiss Exchange just announced on Monday that Helveteq is introducing two new crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), Bitcoin (Bitcoin Zero / BTCO2) and Ethereum (Ether Zero / ETH2O), becoming the third crypto ETP issuer to join SIX in 2022.

An ETP is a derivative financial instrument that trades based on assets such as commodities, currencies, share prices, or interest rates. The BTCO2 and ETH2O ETPs seek to expose investors to the world's two most valuable cryptocurrencies while offsetting their carbon footprints. They are part of the "crypto goes carbon neutral" campaign led by Helveteq in conjunction with the Swiss fintech innovation lab at the University of Zurich.

Christian Katz, CEO of Helveteq, said it is vital to provide carbon-neutral crypto ETPs while commenting on the latest listing. He added that:

"Awareness of the link between the environment and the blockchain economy is rising fast and we all must work together to find sustainable solutions. That’s why Helveteq sponsors and cooperates with the University of Zurich for research in this field, based on which we compensate the carbon footprint of our Zero ETP family.”

Many crypto ETPs have been created since the world's first crypto ETP was launched on the Swiss SIX Exchange in December 2018. The Amun Crypto Basket ETP (HODL), which tracks five major cryptocurrencies, was introduced in 2018 as the platform's first ETP.

On Jan 13, SIX announced the BTCetc Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) trading, allowing investors to gain exposure to the world's most valuable cryptocurrency in a new way. The platform provides access to 240 cryptocurrencies-based products. According to the announcement, the platform's trading volume for crypto-related products surged 673% in 2021.

‘The risks outweigh the benefits’ of a Swiss CBDC, says SNB governing board member

January 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Business

"This does not mean the SNB is not interested in CBDC, but our focus is to look at the role that wholesale CBDCs could play," said Andréa Maechler.

Andréa Maechler, a member of the governing board for the Swiss National Bank, or SNB, has reportedly altered her position on the central bank issuing a digital franc.

According to a Tuesday report from Reuters journalist John Revill, Maechler said officials at the country’s central bank “believe the risks outweigh the benefits” when it comes to CBDCs. The governing board member said having the general public use a digital franc in day-to-day transactions would likely not help to promote financial inclusion in Switzerland, where almost all the working population already have access to bank accounts.

"This does not mean the SNB is not interested in CBDC, but our focus is to look at the role that wholesale CBDCs could play," said Maechler, adding the central bank needed to consider privacy concerns and the potential for the digital currency to be used for illicit transactions.

The governing board member’s statement comes following the SNB announcing it had integrated a wholesale CBDC into the banking systems of five commercial banks in Switzerland. At the time, Maechler seemed to encourage the rollout, saying “central banks need to stay on top of technological change“ in an effort to ensure monetary and financial stability.

Testing the introduction of a wholesale CBDC was part of the second phase of Project Helvetia, an initiative aimed at preparing central banks for distributed ledger technology-based tokenized financial assets. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the SNB integrated the wholesale CBDC into the existing systems and processes of Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and UBS.

Switzerland was also a testing ground for many crypto projects and products in 2021. In September, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority approved one of the first crypto funds to operate in the country, the Crypto Market Index Fund. The SIX Swiss Exchange currently lists several crypto exchanged-traded products in addition to its own plans to launch a digital asset marketplace and central securities depository.

Central Banks of France, Switzerland and BIS Complete Cross-Border CBDC Trial

December 9, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Bitcoin briefly flippens Swiss franc after rally to new ATH

October 20, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

The crypto asset's market capitalization overtook the Russian ruble in February after a major announcement from car manufacturer Tesla.

After hitting a new all-time high price approaching $67,000 earlier today, the market capitalization of Bitcoin briefly surpassed the total market cap of the Swiss franc.

According to data from Fiatmarketcap, Bitcoin’s market cap was more than $1.263 trillion when the price of the crypto asset reached an all-time high of roughly $67,000 earlier today. This briefly exceeded the value of the circulating supply of the Swiss franc at 1,158,489,000,000 CHF, or roughly $1.26 trillion. AssetDash also lists the total Bitcoin (BTC) market cap within $500 billion of Amazon.

The price rise that led to Bitcoin flippening the franc in value came as crypto futures-linked exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, were being approved for trading on major U.S. stock exchanges. The Bitcoin Strategy ETF from ProShares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday as the BTC rose above $63,000 for the first time in months.

In addition, filings at the Securities and Exchange Commission suggest that similar shares of ETFs from crypto-asset manager Valkyrie and asset manager VanEck may soon appear on exchanges. The regulatory body has yet to approve any BTC futures ETF application from Invesco, with Global X and Galaxy Digital also awaiting approval of funds with direct exposure to crypto.

Bitcoin’s market cap was already worth more than the total value of many fiat currencies. Most recently, it flippened the Russian ruble in February after car manufacturer Tesla announced it had purchased an aggregate of $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and suggested its clients would soon have the ability to purchase its products using the crypto asset. The Brazilian real, with a market cap of more than $1.5 trillion, would be next for Bitcoin to potentially overtake.

Though the price of Ether (ETH) also rallied to rise above $4,000 for the first time since May, BTC remains the top rated asset with a market capitalization more than $750 billion than that of ETH. At the time of publication, 18,849,193 BTC are currently in circulation.

swiss franc