French depositary bank issues 100 million euro digital bond to pilot wCBDC settlement
The French depositary bank (CDC) recently issued a 100 million euro (108 million USD) digital bond to be settled using the Bank of France's DL3S DLT platform and its pilot wholesale central bank digital currency, wCBDC. The transaction is part of the European Central Bank's wholesale DLT settlement pilot, which ends this month.
The Bank of France avoids using the term wholesale CBDC, instead referring to it as a tokenized representation of central bank money. For the issuance of the CDC, it needs to synchronize the issuance of digital native notes (DNNs) on Euroclear's D-FMI platform with the settlement on the central bank's DL3S. Under French law, DNNs are issued anonymously.
In addition, the French pilot CBDC solution has been used in a number of other digital bond offerings. These include 30 million euro sovereign bonds issued by Slovenia and small commercial paper issued by ABN Amro, as well as several other DL3S experiments involving simulations.