The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) established the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH) in 2019 to foster international collaboration on innovative financial technology within the central banking community. The BISIH’s mandate is to identify and develop in-depth insights into critical trends in financial technology of relevance to central banks, to explore the development of public goods to enhance the functioning of the global financial system, and to serve as a focal point for a network of central bank experts on innovation. It complements the already well established cooperation within the BIS-hosted committees.

Project Helvetia – as described in this report – is a prime example of how the BISIH, together with partners, can develop deep insights into the latest financial technologies and explore the development of central bank public goods. Project Helvetia investigates how central bank money can be used for settlement in a world where securities and other financial assets migrate from today’s centralised financial market infrastructures to new so-called decentralised or tokenised platforms for trading and post-trading activities. One proof of concept relies on wholesale central bank digital currency (w-CBDC) whereas another is based on a link to the existing central bank system for wholesale payments.

Through public/private collaboration and experimentation, Project Helvetia facilitates a better understanding of both technical issues and policy implications of innovations in this sphere. Clearly, if w-CBDCs are to fulfil their potential and promise as a new means of payment, their design and implications deserve close study and consideration. This is possible only via continued deliberations and experimentations among central banks and with other stakeholders, such as market supervisors and not least the private sector.

I wish to thank our partners the Swiss National Bank and SIX for excellent teamwork, and I hope this report offers useful insights for the central banking community and for the interested public. Given the speed of digital transformation, central banks (and others) need to learn fast to make informed policy decisions.