Key takeaways:




The Central Bank of Spain has selected its partners for the CBDC experiment one year after releasing an open request for partners.



An additional component of the Cecabank-Abanca consortium-led experiment will see the payment of a fictitious tokenized bond using the wholesale CBDC.




The central bank of Spain, Banco de España, has selected its partners for the central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiment one year after releasing an open request for partners. 



The central bank announced its alliance with Adhara Blockchain, Abanca, and Cecabank in a resolution published on January 3. 



Within the next six months, a wholesale CBDC pilot will be conducted. This pilot will simulate the processing and settlement of interbank payments using multiple wholesale CBDCs issued by different central banks and a single tokenized wholesale CBDC.



An additional component of the Cecabank-Abanca consortium-led experiment will see the payment of a fictitious tokenized bond using the wholesale CBDC.



Three enterprises were selected out of the 24 applications submitted to the central bank in the last year. Adhara Blockchain is based in the United Kingdom, although both Cecabank and Abanca are Spanish banks.



The public declaration of the Spanish CBDC program’s independence from the digital euro initiative, which, if it were to be realized, would encompass all of the eurozone’s economies, makes it relatively unique. 



The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation of the European Union was to be implemented six months ahead of schedule, according to a statement made by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. The Bank of Spain also released a document outlining the characteristics and applications of the digital euro in October.



The digital euro hasn’t garnered much interest from the Spaniards themselves. According to a poll conducted in October, 65% of respondents stated they would not use the pan-European CBDC in addition to their usual payment methods, while only 20% said they would.



The Africa Stablecoin Consortium (ASC) has been permitted to start a trial of the cNGN stablecoin inside the regulatory sandbox by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), a noteworthy development. The stablecoin is scheduled to go live on February 27, 2024. According to the ASC, the cNGN strictly complies with the regulatory norms imposed by the CBN, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), a partnership of Nigerian banks and fintech companies.


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