The Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub London Center collaborated on a pilot project called Project Meridian, which tested a settlement system powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT) between the two institutions. The project involved purchasing houses in Wales and England through a synchronization network using DLT, and insights gained from the project were incorporated into the Bank of England’s real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system.
The project aims to provide a settlement system for central bank digital currencies (CBDC), with potential benefits for central banks in terms of innovation and new payment infrastructure. However, there are concerns about identity verification, restricted operating hours, and legal questions related to settlement irrevocability, asset ownership, and the prevention of the arbitrary use of clients’ funds.
BIS has also been reported in other CBDC pilot projects, including Project Icebreaker with Israel, Norway, and Sweden, and a successful CBDC pilot involving Hong Kong, Thailand, China, and the United Arab Emirates, facilitating $22 million in cross-border transactions.
source: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp63.pdf
