Project Helvetia Phase III – Issuance of live wholesale CBDC for transaction settlement

As part of Project Helvetia Phase III, SIX and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will pilot wholesale CBDC issuance in Switzerland, focusing on tokenizing central bank money for financial institutions (referred to as wholesale central bank digital currency or wCBDC). The objective of the pilot is to test, in a live production environment, the settlement of primary and secondary market transactions in wCBDC.

Helvetia Phase III, building off of Helvetia Phases I and II, will see the first orchestration of a real Swiss Franc wCBDC settling digital securities transactions. SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) will act as trusted gateway and host the pilot on its digital asset platform powered by Corda.

The collaboration will also involve Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Basler Kantonalbank, Commerzbank, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, UBS, and Zürcher Kantonalbank as existing SDX member banks.