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The Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, is moving ahead with the next phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) project called the e-krona. This time, the bank has invited two participants from the country’s financial sectors, which signals the transition from in-house testing to cooperation with external partners.
The central bank has partnered with one of Sweden’s major banking institutions, Handelsbanken, and the digital services and software firm Tietoevry during the new phase of its CBDC project, according to Bitcoin.com. The main goal for this phase of the pilot is to trial e-krona with the participation of real market entities.
During the next phase of the e-krona pilot, the Riksbank will test the technical solution for the e-krona together with Handelsbanken and TietoEVRY,” the Sveriges Riksbank said in an announcement. “The e-krona pilot is therefore moving on from only having simulated participants to cooperation with external participants in the test environment.”
With the involvement of Tietoevry and Handelsbanken, the testing will focus on the integration of e-krona’s platform and the two entities’ existing systems. “Involving external actors as participants in the test environment will make it possible for the Riksbank to evaluate the integration between the participants’ existing systems and the technical platform for the e-krona pilot,” the central bank added. “The Riksbank will, for instance, be testing an integration of the payment flows developed during the first year of the pilot with the participants’ internal systems.”
With its expertise in software, Tietoevry will develop and test the process of interchangeability of fiat and the DBDC. “Tietoevry will develop and test the process of interchangeability between commercial money and e-kronor and analyse how this can be carried out securely and efficiently,” the company said in a separate announcement.
The Riksbank’s e-krona project started in 2017. The central bank’s team held consultations with several national and international agents to hear their inputs for the CBDC, before proceeding with the more technical phase, the e-krona pilot, in 2020.
