Central Bank of Brazil to pilot CBDC trade finance solution with Chainlink, Microsoft, 7COMm and Banco Inter
The Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) has teamed up with a host of industry players to develop a trade finance solution for phase two of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot Drex.
BCB to pilot CBDC trade finance solution
The selected developers include Brazilian digital bank Banco Inter, blockchain platform Chainlink, Microsoft Brazil and 7COMm, a solutions provider focused on digital transformation.
Participants will collaborate on automating supply chain management and other trade finance processes by combining blockchain technology and oracles into a single solution.
According to Chainlink, phase two of Drex will “demonstrate the automated settlement of agricultural commodity transactions across borders, across platforms, and via different currencies”, with infrastructure development “to begin in the coming weeks”.
This infrastructure will largely be based on Chainlink’s cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP), which will facilitate connectivity between BCB and an unnamed foreign central bank through the on-chain tokenisation of an Electronic Bill of Lading (eBoL).
Microsoft, which has been collaborating with BCB on Drex since last year, will provide cloud services for the project, while 7COMm will support the technical implementation delivery and Banco Inter will lead the implementation of Drex in Brazil.
The central bank has been working towards a digital Brazilian real for the last four years, and first unveiled issuance guidelines in 2021.
It joined hands with the National Federation of Associations of Central Bank Servers (Fenasbac) the following year to analyse potential use cases for the currency.
