case. recording these deposits on banks ’ balance sheet would mean they would differ significantly from stablecoins. these tokenised deposits could potentially complement a wholesale cbdc. this brings me to retail cbdc : after completing a two - year investigation phase, the eurosystem recently launched the preparation phase that will lay foundations for a potential digital euro. vi this “ digital banknote ” will have the same characteristics as existing cash : it will be accepted everywhere across the euro area thanks to its legal tender status ; vii it will meet the highest privacy standards ; and its basic functionalities will be free of charge for individuals. viii in addition, the digital euro will bring complementary advantages compared with banknotes : it will allow the use of central bank money in e - commerce, in remote peer - to - peer payments, as well as for conditional payments, and will foster financial inclusion in the digital era. likewise, the digital euro will be distributed through banks : we are not, and will not become competitors to commercial banks. once again, money shall remain a public - private partnership. but the trust commercial bank money inspires is anchored by its full equivalence and permanent convertibility, 1 : 1, to central bank money. loosening this public anchor would sooner or later undermine trust ; tokenised central bank money will provide the necessary “ safety pivot ”, and it will also act as a “ ‘ platform for innovation ”. ix the payment ecosystem as a whole will therefore benefit from it : the digital euro scheme we are developing will enable the emergence of open acceptance standards, fostering convergence and offering common ground on which to build further innovations. the private - sector led european payments initiative ( epi ) with its pan - european wero digital wallet payment solution will be able to take full benefit from it. turning now to a more global perspective, we are working hard on improving cross - border payments. it is one of the g20 ’ s priorities to address their high friction costs, time lags, opacity and low accessibility. central banks have built their monetary set - ups along similar principles around the world, but lack page 4 sur 4 operational interoperability. the use of wholesale central bank money has the potential to address these issues, and in turn to improve cross - border payments. • over a short - to medium - term horizon, we are exploring the building of bridges between payment systems. some projects could be implemented quickly, for instance the bis ’ nexus which is aimed at enabling people

), which offers clear benefits such as increased transparency page 2 sur 4 and interconnectedness. we look forward to shaping our construction accordingly, so that it remains state - of - the - art, fluid and consistent with its environment. central banks are therefore, one might say, also doubly in charge of ariadne ’ s thread, ensuring trust and creating new gateways so that anyone can find their way. everybody knows asia is tech - friendly, and that the monetary authority of singapore ( mas ) in particular is proactive in this regard. this is perhaps less known, but so are europe and france. i will illustrate this concretely by recalling what the banque de france and the eurosystem have done so far, and the projects that are in our pipeline today, many of which relate to exploratory work on central bank digital currencies ( cbdcs ). i will start with wholesale cbdc, where the banque de france has been a pioneer by conducting twelve experiments since november 2020. we have explored all identified use cases on all types of dlt ( public and private ), with a wide range of public and private partners. iii these experiments have shown that central banks will be able to steer the money supply of wholesale cbdc – which is essential to anchor the value of central bank money, and hence financial stability in the realm of tokenisation. we are testing various technologies in our experiments : we are improving our own dlt ( dl3s ), and in parallel we are exploring alternative protocols and blockchains – be they private or public. the banque de france is now also actively involved in the eurosystem exploratory work on the settlement of tokenised assets in central bank money, which was launched last april. iv with our dl3s technology, we are providing one of the three solutions that will be used over the course of 2024 in experiments and trials, the latter involving real transactions. the eurosystem has already published the envisaged eligibility criteria and a survey, v before a formal call for interest that will take place in the coming weeks, and will roll out the experiments and trials over the course of 2024. commercial banks and other financial actors will have a key role in the success of our exploratory work. in particular, i invite banks to take the opportunity of these experiments to explore page 3 sur 4 “ tokenised deposits ”, for which the bis has made a strong