SETL Completes World’s First CBDC Fund Transaction on Live Market Infrastructure
London, 19 January 20210: SETL, the London-based Settlement and Payments Infrastructure provider, today announced that Banque de France (BDF) has successfully completed a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) transaction, using the SETL blockchain that powers the IZNES fund platform.
The CBDC tokens were used to subscribe to a fund on the platform and represented the world’s first successful live settlement of a fund using CBDC tokens. The experiment was carried out on the IZNES platform in collaboration with CITI, CACEIS the custody bank of Groupe Credit Agricole, Groupama Asset Management, OFI Asset Management, and DXC Technology.
As part of this experiment, shares of the money market fund ‘Groupama Enterprises’ were subscribed and then redeemed on the IZNES Platform using Central Bank Digital Currency tokens created by Banque de France. The global amount of the transactions exceeded two million Euros.
SETL provided both the distributed ledger technology (DLT) as well as the infrastructure underpinning the issuance and redemption of the CBDC tokens, in collaboration with the BDF and IZNES technology teams.
CITI and CACEIS acted as the participating commercial banks to purchase CDBC tokens from Banque de France. CACEIS also acted as the Custodian of the Groupama funds.
As reflected in the Banque De France’s own statement, this experiment represents a significant step forward in assessing the contribution that CBDCs can make in the real economy. The successful fund experiment tests the levers that a central bank digital currency provides for enhancing the efficiency and resilience of the settlement of financial assets in a blockchain environment.
Commenting on the successful transaction Sir David Walker, SETL Chairman, said: “The successful completion of a central bank digital currency live experiment with BDF confirms that SETL is uniquely positioned to help transform Financial Markets. We are delighted to be recognised for the role we play in these significant market transformation programmes. “
Philippe Morel, SETL CEO, added: “Further to the successful delivery of our two market infrastructures – the Fund Platform IZNES and the ID2S Central Securities Depository, we are now excited to take our Payments offering to the next level. Together with our proven track record in delivering regulated Market Infrastructures, this further strengthens SETL’s strategic capabilities.”
ABOUT SETL
SETL is a London-based specialist in building distributed ledger technology (DLT) based solutions for Financial Markets, the Asset Management and Payments industry. SETL’s technology is proprietary, market leading, and designed specifically for regulated, high performance, low latency applications that comply with ENISA and NIST standards.
SETL is the only DLT company in Europe to provide technology to regulated financial market infrastructures that are active, operational and transformative, including the Fund Platform IZNES and the ID2S Central Securities Depository.
SETL is led by a team of financial services professionals who have deep industry knowledge and expertise in disruptive innovation. SETL provides a range of global services that include planning, design, regulatory submissions, development, and deployment. SETL’s financial expertise is supported by our significant technical engineering capabilities.
SETL’s board of directors chaired by Sir David Walker, former chairman of Barclays and includes Christian Noyer, former Governor of the Banque de France and Professor Philip Bond, visiting researcher from the University of Oxford.
Contact
Sybille Mueller and Alexander Clare, Streets Consulting
Email: sybille.mueller@streetsconsulting.com; Alexander.Clare@streetsconsulting.com