As part of its ongoing exploration into the settlement of tokenised assets using central bank money, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has announced the extension and expansion of Project Helvetia.

Since late 2023, the SNB has been piloting the provision of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) for financial institutions on the SIX Digital Exchange trading and settlement platform.

Following an internal evaluation, the SNB has decided to continue the pilot for at least another year, extending its duration until mid-2027.

This continuation does not constitute a commitment to the permanent introduction of wholesale CBDC.

In parallel, the SNB is expanding the project to include the settlement of tokenised assets via traditional central bank money through a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) link.

To support this effort, the SNB is granting BX Digital, a financial market infrastructure planning to operate a trading venue for tokenised assets, access to a production-environment connection with the existing Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) system.

Both settlement approaches were initially tested during the first phase of Project Helvetia.

Their implementation in a live production environment is expected to offer further insights into their respective operational benefits and limitations.

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