of Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has been released Project Rialto It will test the possibility of improving instant cross-border payments through the combination of a modular foreign exchange (FX) component and a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC).
Strengthening cross-border payments is an important international policy objective and a G20 priority.
Currently, FX services offered by correspondent banks are often costly, slow and complex, creating liquidity, credit and settlement risks for participants.
Decentralized solutions, CBDCs and interconnected payment infrastructures offer promising paths to improving cross-border payments.
Project Rialto aims to explore how these elements can interact to evolve the global payments system.
The initiative is being implemented jointly by the BIS Innovation Hub Eurosystem and the Singapore Centre in partnership with several central banks.
It aims to develop a new automated FX settlement layer that uses wCBDC as a secure settlement asset for interconnected instant payments or digital asset systems.
The name “Rialto” refers to the famous bridge in Venice and symbolizes the project’s goal of bridging a gap in cross-border payments infrastructure, as well as its role as a marketplace to represent automated FX payments using wCBDC.
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