The international cross-border payments system SWIFT connected the central banks of three countries to the second phase of pilot testing for the interoperability of traditional systems with CBDC.
The participants include the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the National Bank of Kazakhstan, and another unnamed regulator. They have already integrated the infrastructure solution for direct transaction testing.
“We are focused on interoperability issues — ensuring that new digital currencies can coexist seamlessly with each other, as well as with cash and payment systems,” SWIFT said.
In parallel, testing in a sandbox will begin, during which regulators, commercial banks and market infrastructure participants will explore additional CBDC use cases, including trigger payments for digital trading platforms, currency-exchange models, delivery and settlement mechanisms, and liquidity provision.
In the expanded pilot group are the Reserve Bank of Australia, Deutsche Bundesbank, HKMA, the Bank of Thailand, the CLS payment system and others.
In May 2022, SWIFT announced interoperability testing across different CBDC platforms for cross-border payments. In the first phase, about 5,000 transactions were conducted between two blockchains and existing payment systems.
In September of the same year, the operator, together with the Chainlink decentralized oracle network, agreed to develop a mechanism that would allow traditional financial institutions to conduct cryptocurrency transfers.