The Central Bank of Brazil, in collaboration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, has announced a list of 13 selected themes for the second phase of the Drex CBDC Pilot platform. These themes were chosen from 42 use case proposals and mark the next step in testing the implementation of financial services using smart contracts.
The second phase will focus on developing infrastructure to enable third-party participants to manage smart contracts. Over the coming weeks, discussions will commence between regulators and participants to finalise the strategies for implementation, governance, and integration of privacy solutions into the proposed services.
A total of 16 consortia and companies are already engaged in the development of the platform. These include:
- ABBC: Brazilian Credit Bank, Ribeirão Preto Bank, Original Bank, ABC Brazil Bank, BS2 Bank, Seguro Bank, ABBC, BBChain, Microsoft, and BIP;
- ABC: Banco ABC, Hamsa, LoopiPay, and Google;
- B3: Banco B3, B3, and B3 Digitas;
- BB: Bank of Brazil;
- Bradesco: Bradesco, Nuclea, and Setl;
- BTG: BTG Bank;
- BV: BV Bank;
- Box: Box, Elo, and Microsoft;
- Inter: Banco Inter, Microsoft, and 7Comm;
- Itaú: Itaú Unibanco;
- MB: MBPay, Cerc, Sinqia, Mastercard, and Banco Genial;
- Nubank: NuBank;
- Santander: Santander, Santander Asset Management, F1RST, and Toro CTVM;
- SFCoop: Ailos, Cresol, Sicoob, Sicredi, and Unicred;
- TecBan: Basa, TecBan, Pinbank, Dinamo, Cresol, Banco Arbi, Ntokens, Clear Sale, Foxbit, CPqD, AWS, and Parfin;
- XP-Visa: XP and Visa.
The Executive Management Committee of the Drex CBDC Pilot has grouped the 42 proposals into 13 themes, with 11 overseen by the Central Bank of Brazil and two by the Securities and Exchange Commission. These themes cover a variety of use cases in financial services:
- Assignment of receivables: ABC and Inter
- Credit collateralised in CDB: BB, Bradesco, and Itaú
- Credit collateralised in public securities: ABBC, ABC, and MB
- Trade finance operations: Inter
- Optimisation of the foreign exchange market: XP-Visa and Nubank
- Liquidity pool for trading public securities: ABC, Inter, and MB
- Transactions with bank credit notes: ABBC
- Transactions with agribusiness assets (CVM): TecBan, MB, and XP-Visa
- Transactions with assets on public networks: MB
- Transactions with automobiles: B3, BV, and Santander
- Credit transactions and decarbonisation (CBIO): Santander
- Transactions with debentures (CVM): B3, BTG, and Santander
- Real estate transactions: BB, Caixa, and SFCoop
Looking ahead, the Central Bank plans to open applications during the third quarter of 2024 for additional entities interested in joining the Drex CBDC Pilot. Those selected will begin testing the implementation of smart contracts by the end of the first half of 2025.
