On January 22, 2021, the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub (BISIH) announced a work programme focusing on six key areas to address “international collaboration among central banks on innovative financial technology”. These areas include: suptech and regtech; next-generation financial market infrastructures; central bank digital currencies; open finance; green finance; and cyber security.

In addition to launching the Innovation Network to support their priorities, BISIH plans to launch a series of projects including:

• “a proof of concept solution for a regulatory reporting platform employing data analytics and data visualisation to provide supervisors with deeper and more timely insights to address risks;
• a proof of concept platform using multiple wholesale CBDCs to explore the feasibility of faster and cheaper cross-border payments;
• a technological research project and associated prototype(s) for tiered retail CBDC distribution architectures; and
• a distributed ledger technology prototype for distribution of tokenised green bonds to retail investors.”

More information regarding the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub work programme and the Innovation Network can be found here.