Call for expression of interest: exploring new technologies for wholesale central bank money settlement

13 December 2023

The Eurosystem invites financial market stakeholders to express their formal interest in taking part in the planned exploration of new technologies for wholesale central bank money settlement.

The call for expression of interest invites the financial market stakeholders to take part in trials with central bank money settlement and in experiments with mock settlement in a test environment. The trials and experiments will be conducted with three Eurosystem solutions enabling wholesale financial transactions recorded on distributed ledger technology platforms to be settled in central bank money in the T2 real-time gross settlement system operated by the Eurosystem.

Financial market stakeholders interested in participating in the trials and/or experiments between May 2024 and November 2024 are invited to respond to the relevant national central banks by 31 January 2024. Those wishing to join trials and/or experiments between July 2024 and November 2024 should respond by 30 April 2024. The annexes consist of:

• the call for expression of interest, which describes the timeline and the use cases, process and requirements for taking part in the exploratory work, as well as providing information on how to register interest in participating;
• a detailed description of the three interoperability solutions;
• a registration form with contact details.

In April 2023 the Eurosystem announced the planned work to explore potential solutions for central bank money settlement of wholesale financial transactions recorded on distributed ledger technology platforms. It later ran a survey on the plans for trials and experiments. The Eurosystem will also offer key insights into this exploratory work in a focus session to be held between 9:00 and 14:00 CET on 15 December 2023. At this event, the objectives of the work will be outlined and details will be provided on the planned trials and experiments, showcasing the three potential solutions.