19th January 2021 – As part of the experimentation program led by the Banque de France, more than ten transactions on fund units, for a total amount of more than two million euros, were carried out in December 2020 on the IZNES platform using central bank digital currency (CBDC).
This is the first settlement of fund units using CBDC.
These operations were carried out on the IZNES platform in collaboration with SETL, CITI, CACEIS, Groupama AM, OFI AM and DXC, in strict compliance with existing regulations.
To this end, IZNES, the sole European operator of a platform for subscribing and redeeming fund units on a private blockchain, designed and developed with its partners a portal accepting CBDC tokens and upgraded the operational platform within three months.
SETL provided the DLT technology as well as the technology behind the issuance and redemption of CBDC tokens, in liaison with the technology team of the Banque de France and IZNES. DXC supervised the security issues.
CITI and CACEIS acted as commercial banks to use CBDC tokens created by the Banque de France. CACEIS also acted as custodian of the “Groupama Entreprises” fund. Groupama AM acted as fund manager, while OFI AM and SETL acted as proprietary investors.
Each player was thus able to assess the value of a CBDC in the fund distribution value chain, and to experiment with simpler, faster and even more secure processes.