Central Banks of Italy and South Korea to Cooperate on CBDC

The Bank of Italy and the Bank of Korea have announced a memorandum of understanding to share technical knowledge supporting real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems and central bank digital currencies (CBDC). When it comes to CBDC, the two central banks have taken very different paths. While the Bank of Korea has conducted retail CBDC trials, the current focus is on issuing wholesale CBDC to support tokenized bank deposits. Initial tokenized deposit trials will be for programmable payments, including voucher-based testing. (Ledger Insights)