ECB preps DLT trials for wholesale central bank money settlement

The European Central Bank has put together a host of participants for exploratory work on the use of distributed ledger technology to settle wholesale transactions in central bank money. The first wave of trials will involve 10 market participants, six market DLT operators and five central banks, carrying out tests involving actual settlement in central bank money and experiments with mock settlement in a test environment. The use cases mainly explore the securities settlement cycle, such as delivery-versus-payment, secondary market transactions and lifecycle management of securities. Other options under consideration are related to cross-border payments, such as payment-versus-payment. Deutsche Börse’s post-trade business Clearstream is part of the operation through its digital post-trade platform D7, which has been boosted with DLT capabilities. Jens Hachmeister, head, issuer services and new digital markets, Clearstream, says: “Clearstream’s participation in the ECB trials is a significant milestone in our digitisation journey: we are expanding our D7 digital securities infrastructure with DLT components and fostering connections with the main digital payment solutions across the Eurosystem. “We are thrilled to further collectively shape the future of an inter-connected digital European settlement landscape together with the ECB and our broad participant base.”