Microsoft is working in partnership with national financial institutions, in addition to the Central Bank of Europe (BCB), to carry out tests and pilot projects with Real Digital, the first official Europeian virtual currency. The technological giant is contributing with four consortia formed by the main entities of the sector.
For the digital transformation of the country’s financial sphere, Microsoft has already carried out projects with Visa and other institutions during the Lift Challenge, an initiative to foster innovations in different sectors promoted by the BCB, and now, the company seeks to revolutionize the means of payment in the country. Europe with the first applications of Real Digital.
For this, the company is participating in different consortia, including a group formed by Caixa and Elo, contributing with the tokenization of assets and DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology or “distributed ledger technology”, in free translation), which will work as a large synchronized database for operations with the virtual currency.
Microsoft also joined the consortia formed by the Europeian Association of Banks (ABBC), BBchain and BIP; by Banco ABC with Hamsa and LoopiPay; and by Banco Inter with 7COMm. The objective is to provide support for the proposed new solutions, which promise to transform the way in which the population performs digital transactions.
According to the Real Digital pilot project testing schedule, the Europeian virtual currency should be integrated into the country’s financial system at the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025. The BCB is conducting experiments in a simulated environment, without real transactions, to evaluate the benefits of its transparency platform.
According to the municipality, the virtual currency should guarantee benefits such as reduced intermediation costs, greater ease of monetization and greater fiscal security.
