The French Central Bank, Banque de France has revealed plans to launch a national digital currency in the first half of 2020.
According to the bank’s governor, Villeroy de Galhau, the institution will first roll out a pilot project for the digital currency linked to the Euro. The resolution was arrived at after a conference by two French regulators, the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority and the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF).
During the December 4 conference, Villeroy de Galhau pointed out that France is keen on taking part in digital currency innovation. At the same time, he urged stakeholders to take caution and that’s why France had resolved to experiment with the new digital currency comprehensively and methodically. He affirmed that the entire project will be subject to special vigilance.
He added that the project also seeks to be a step ahead over private currencies like Facebook’s Libra.
The governor further noted that the pilot project will be used to facilitate institutions and other major industrial entities. The project would not entail retail payments made by individual investors.
Calls for EU to Test Public Digital Currency
The development comes just days after France's Minister of Economic and Finance Bruno Le Maire urged the EU member states to experiment with a public digital currency.
It is worth noting that across the EU zone, France has been leading the way in terms of researching the DLT and blockchain technology. In October Recently, the central bank started looking for a blockchain analyst to help in designing a digital currency implementation program.
In the course of the project, the French central bank will undergo some internal renovations with the payment supervision and market infrastructure branch expanding into the Directorate of Infrastructure, Innovations, and Payments (DIIP).
Growing List of Countries Interested in Public Digital Currencies
With the project, France becomes the first European country to pilot a national digital currency.
The EU states now joins China which has plans to issue a central bank-backed digital currency.
According to the People's Bank of China, it has been experimenting with a national digital currency since 2014. The latest update from the bank indicated that it is still testing and researching the digital yuan. At the moment, no clear launch date has been revealed.
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