Associazione Bancaria Italiana (ABI), or the Italian Banking Association, has launched a digital euro research project. Several countries are contributing to the research towards the ECB’s (European Central Bank) central bank digital currency (CBDC). The project concentrates on enhancing the role of banks in the European Central Bank’s digital euro experimentation. The digital euro varies from the current electronic payments owing to its programmability.
Italy’s ABI intends to explore the technical utility of leveraging DLT (distributed ledger technology) for a digital euro currency. The ABI has a great track record. Thus, it can make a valuable contribution. Additionally, more than 100 Italian banks are in production with blockchain nodes as its Project Spunta. Moreover, it allows automatic adjustment of interbank accounts utilizing a blockchain solution using R3’s Corda.
Italian Banking Association Project is classified into two parts.
The project is bifurcated into two work areas. One involves the infrastructure and distribution model to examine technical availability. The second involves programmability to experiment use cases to distinguish the digital euro from the existing e-payments. The applicability of the primary work area is associated with SIA, in synergy with the ABI Lab Chain banking infrastructure, which already has 100 active nodes spread everywhere in Italy and the banks that work through it.
The secondary work area will be split into different working groups that will concentrate on use cases and will function in association with the banks and PWC, NTT Data, and Reply, which have made their devices accessible to the project. The project is free for all interested banks. The digital currency initiative welcomes banks that are willing to participate. The greatest benefit is that so many banks already have nodes.
However, earlier, the ABI elucidated that it was interesting to engage in the digital Euro experiments. It has restated the ECB’s goals involve equipping itself for increased digitization. That is the movement distant from cash usage. It intends to respond to private digital currencies fully, which definitely involves Facebook’s Diem. Various European countries have openly declared digital euro projects. Moreover, it involves the central banks of France, Estonia, and Spain, amongst numerous others.
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