The Bank of France plans to launch a pilot project to test digital currency for financial institutions next year. According to Governor François Villeroy de Galhau, the central bank will testing the digital euro project by the end of the first quarter next year.
The French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority held a conference to announce the central bank digital currency. The digital euro pilot project will solely target private financial sector players in the country. Also, it will strengthen the French financial system —while reinforcing trust in the digital currency.
The chief focus of the pilot project is to establish France as the world’s first country to issue central bank digital currency. The governor told the media that, “We want to start running experiments rapidly and will launch a call for projects before the end of the first quarter of 2020. A CBDC would help to preserve the trust in the financial system that stems in part from being able to exchange assets for legal tender.”
Previously, France had shown skepticism toward Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, stating that it can jeopardise the monetary sovereignty. The country’s digital euro currency is expected to benefit the whole eurozone and might eventually lead to a eeuro. Eeuro will be the country’s next big focus making a significant contribution to the Eurosystem’s body of work.
Even the People’s Bank of China is also expected to launch its own digital currency in the next 18 months. Currently, it is in the experimental stage and has undergone robust research for five years now.