After Switzerland's National Bank turned its attention away from issuing central bank digital currency for retail purposes, the country's commercial banks are joining forces to push ahead with a digital coin.
Swiss banks including Julius Baer, UBS and Credit Suisse are working on a project to issue their own «deposit token,» and have published a whitepaper together with the Swiss Bankers Association and members from academia, detailing the project.
Economy 4.0
The digital money's main use would be for trading and settling digital assets and, at a later stage, for payments made by machines within the Internet of Things, on Web3 and in the Metaverse.
With privately issued stablecoins continuously raising questions about adequate backing, the authors of the white paper argue that there is a need for a reliable digital currency that «enjoys sufficiently broad legitimation» equal to conventional money.
Central Bank Digital Currency
They also point out that a digital token issued by commercial banks should not undermine the SNB’s sole authority to issue digital central bank money in future.
