The Swiss National Bank (SNB), six commercial banks, and the SIX Swiss Exchange will collaborate to pilot the issuance of wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the country, dubbed the Swiss franc wCBDC.

The Helvetia Phase III wholesale CBDC pilot project will evaluate the efficacy of a Swiss Franc wCBDC in settling digital securities transactions.

The pilot builds on the findings of the first two phases of the Helvetia project, which were carried out by the BIS Innovation Hub, the SNB, and SIX.

Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Basler Kantonalbank, Commerzbank, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, UBS, and Zürcher Kantonalbank are all existing SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) member banks.

The Swiss wCBDC pilot project will be hosted on SDX and utilize the infrastructure of Swiss Interbank Clearing.

The announcement states that the pilot will run from December 2023 to June 2024.

“The pilot’s objective is to test, in a live production environment, the settlement of primary and secondary market transactions in wCBDC.”

During this period, participating banks will "issue digital Swiss franc bonds, which will be settled against wCBDC on a delivery-versus-payment basis." In this test environment, all transactions will be collateralized by digital bonds and settled on SDX in wCBDC.

In tandem to internal CBDC efforts, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, the Financial Services Agency of Japan, and the Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom collaborated with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to conduct various crypto pilot initiatives.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-wholesale-cbdc-pilot-central-commercial-banks

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/six-collaborates-with-the-swiss-national-bank-to-pilot-wholesale-cbdc-issuance-in-switzerland-301974504.html