The Swiss National Bank has extended and expanded Project Helvetia, its work on settling tokenised assets in central bank money. Following an evaluation, it extended the provision of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the SIX Digital Exchange trading and settlement platform for a further year and will continue the pilot until at least mid-2027. Project Helvetia will also be broadened to cover settlement of tokenised assets using traditional central bank money via a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) link. To support this approach, BX Digital will receive a production-environment connection to the existing Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) system. The SNB noted that extending the pilot does not constitute a commitment to introduce wholesale CBDC on a permanent basis. Both settlement approaches were already tested in Project Helvetia Phase I, and running them in a production environment is intended to allow a direct comparison of their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Swiss National Bank 2025-06-30
Swiss National Bank extends Project Helvetia wholesale CBDC pilot to at least mid-2027 and adds a Swiss Interbank Clearing link for tokenised-asset settlement
The Swiss National Bank has extended Project Helvetia, continuing the provision of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the SIX Digital Exchange until mid-2027. The project will also expand to include settlement of tokenised assets using traditional central bank money via a real-time gross settlement link. This extension does not imply a commitment to permanently introduce wholesale CBDC.