The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Innovation Center (NYIC) has completed its proof of concept of a regulated liability network (RLN) in conjunction with nine large financial institutions and the Swift network. The project created theoretical infrastructure to exchange and settle commercial bank deposit tokens and central bank liabilities using distributed ledger technology and a simulated U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Asset transfers are currently carried out through messaging along the chain of the parties involved. Messaging takes place almost instantly, but settlement does not, Tony McLaughlin, head of emerging payments and business development at Citi Treasury & Trade Solutions, said in a webinar introducing the project results.
The project abandoned trustlessness and anonymity, among other features, from its blockchain to create a system that contained value in the ledger, rather than settling via messaging. The simulated RLN functioned round the clock with multiasset settlement and programmability, McLaughlin said.
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The simulated RLN preserved full U.S. Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer protections in international settlements, McLaughlin said. He called the RLN “a gamechanger for international users of the dollar” that would help maintain the dollar’s role as the international currency of choice.
Deloitte will host a webinar tomorrow with the NY Fed Innovation Center, Mastercard, Citi, and Sullivan & Cromwell to share the findings of the Regulated Liability Network proof-of-concept. See the link to RSVP for the webcast:#payments #CBDC #bankinghttps://t.co/k051hbcesh
— Brian Laverdure, AAP (@brian_laverdure) July 5, 2023
The results of the project were also summed up in separate technical, business and legal reports. The legal report noted, “We have not identified any legal issues that would prevent the creation of the RLN system under current rules and regulations.” Since the project looked at regulated assets, cryptocurrency and stablecoin were not included. Permissionless blockchains and retail CBDC were not considered either.
The NY Fed included its usual disclaimer about the research not signaling a decision on the introduction of a U.S. CBDC. NYIC director Per von Zelowitz said in a statement:
“From a central banking perspective, the proof of concept was conducive to exploring tokenized regulated deposits and understanding the potential functional benefits of central bank and commercial bank digital money operating together on a shared ledger.”
The project was announced in November as a 12-week pilot. BNY Mellon, Citi, HSBC, Mastercard, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo took part in the project.
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