At present, the citizens and business community of Nigeria are protesting against their government against the implementation of digital Naira. However, an international payments operator called Swift has recently published the successful completion of a CBDC pilot phase.
The payment operator reported that the CBDC pilot had shown potential and value for the government. The focus of this pilot event was to determine the interoperability of different CBDCs through API-based connectors.
This was performed using two types of CBDCs issued by two different blockchain networks on the current Swift payment system.
Swift authorities have recently published a press release. This publication reports that all the participants that performed the pilot event showed enthusiastic support and optimism towards its potential and applications.
Furthermore, the testers that were experimenting reported that the CBDC connector made transactions more seamless.
At present, Swift is working to address the risk of fragmentation that may hinder the international payments network. It can create some issues on account of different CBDC technologies developed by central banks in various countries.
Swift is Ready to Create a Beta Version
Swift has reported that it is soon to launch a beta version of the said system that Central Banks may use for their personalized testing. The second phase of the testing will be a sandbox that investors may utilize to explore or participate in settlements of other assets such as securities, finance contracts, and other conditional transactions.
The press release also listed the particulars of 18 central banks and commercial banking enterprises that participated in this pilot. The testing phase conducted 5000 simulation transactions that were carried out spanning a period of 12 weeks.
Some of the noteworthy banking giants, such as HSBC, Natwest, and Standard Chartered, also participated in this venture. Central banks that joined the pilot projects include the likes of Deutsche Bundesbank and Singapore.
