Project Mariana successfully completes cross-border settlement of wholesale CBDCs
Project Mariana has successfully tested the cross-border settlement capabilities of wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs) between three major global markets.
BIS concludes Project Mariana
The project was launched in November 2022 through a collaboration between the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Banque de France, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Swiss National Bank, as a means to establish how tokenisation and automated market makers (AMM) could be applied to the global foreign exchange (FX) market, which currently trades $7.5 trillion every day.
More specifically, it sought to determine how wCBDCs could be leveraged in tandem with decentralised finance (DeFi) to improve the effectiveness and transparency of FX trade and settlements.
Utilising a transnational network based on the public blockchain, the project simulated an interbank FX market using hypothetical Swiss franc, euro and Singapore dollar wCBDCs.
This week, the project has announced that it has reached three main conclusions. Firstly, FX trading and settlement can be contained within a single step as a result of combining wCBDCs with AMM, lowering risks and increasing the efficiency of trades in the process.
Secondly, the need for intermediaries in trading can be overcome through the application of a transnational network, while central banks’ issuance and management of wCBDCs is retained.
Lastly, it confirmed that an interoperable FX interbank market can be integrated into a financial market infrastructure for cross-border trades and enable the trading of a three-token pool against the AMM.
Despite these revelations, the participating banks were keen to emphasise that the project is “purely experimental and does not indicate that any of the partner central banks intend to issue wCBDCs or endorse DeFi”.
Speaking on the conclusion of the project, BIS Innovation Hub head, Cecilia Skingsley, says it has “successfully demonstrated that it is feasible to exchange wholesale CBDC across borders using novel concepts such as automated market makers”.
Adding to this, Thomas Moser, alternate member of the governing board of the Swiss National Bank, comments: “In a potential future with tokenised assets, safe and efficient pricing and exchange mechanisms for cross-currency transactions remain essential. Project Mariana demonstrates the feasibility of such an infrastructure in an innovative way.”
