Switzerland · wholesale CBDC
Project Helvetia
The SNB on public blockchains
Project Helvetia is the Swiss National Bank's multi-phase programme, run with the BIS Innovation Hub and SIX Digital Exchange, to settle tokenised assets in central bank money. Together with Project Agorá it also reveals the SNB's working answer to a harder question: which kind of blockchain is acceptable infrastructure for public money.
Explore the projectsThe four phases
From proof of concept to live issuance of Swiss-franc wholesale CBDC.
Tested whether delivery-versus-payment for tokenised assets on SDX could be settled in central bank money. Two designs were explored: issuing a wholesale CBDC directly on the DLT platform, and linking the DLT platform to the existing SIC RTGS system.
Outcome: Both approaches were shown to be technically and legally feasible. No decision to issue a wholesale CBDC was taken.
Extended the experiment to a production-like environment with core banking systems, cross-border settlement and monetary policy operations, testing end-to-end flows rather than isolated settlement legs.
Outcome: Wholesale CBDC could be integrated into existing bank processes and cross-border transactions without redesigning the whole infrastructure.
The first live issuance of Swiss-franc wholesale CBDC on a regulated DLT platform. Real digital bonds were issued and settled against real central bank money, with secondary market and monetary policy operations included.
Outcome: Moved from experiment to production: genuine CHF wholesale CBDC used for real bond settlement, initially as a time-limited pilot and subsequently extended.
Broadening the participant base and the range of instruments, exploring how tokenised settlement assets, repo operations and interbank flows can run at scale on a regulated platform.
Outcome: Establishes wholesale CBDC on a regulated DLT venue as the SNB's working reference model for tokenised settlement in Switzerland.
The main ideas behind each BIS project
Helvetia I, Helvetia II and Agorá all came out of the same BIS Innovation Hub centre in Zurich — but each was built to answer a different question.
One transaction, two competing designs, tested side by side in a near-live setup. The integrated design issues a wholesale central bank digital currency onto the DLT platform itself, so money and asset are tokens on the same ledger and can swap delivery-versus-payment. The synchronised design leaves the asset on the DLT platform and settles the cash leg in ordinary central bank money through a link to SIC, Switzerland's real-time gross settlement system.
What was put through it
- Issuance (tokenisation) and redemption (de-tokenisation) of wholesale CBDC
- Delivery-versus-payment of a tokenised asset against wholesale CBDC
- Plain transfer of wholesale CBDC between participants
- The same settlement through a DLT-to-SIC link instead of on-platform money
Finding: Both designs proved functionally feasible and legally robust. From the central bank's side the SIC link is operationally simpler and raises fewer policy questions, while on-platform wholesale CBDC offers more scope for innovation and efficiency gains in the settlement process.
Why it matters for CHF: This is the fork in the road for any CHF token: either the settlement leg lives inside the DLT venue, or it stays in the legacy RTGS system with a coordinated bridge between the two.
Phase II moved the experiment out of the infrastructure sandbox and into bank plumbing. Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and UBS connected their core banking systems to the SDX and SIC test environments, and the SNB connected its own, so that transactions ran end to end instead of stopping at the platform boundary.
What was put through it
- Interbank transfers in wholesale CBDC between participating banks
- Monetary policy operations, including collateralised lending against tokenised assets
- A cross-border settlement leg
- The full chain from a bank's core system to the DLT platform and back
Finding: Integrating wholesale CBDC with the existing core banking systems of commercial and central banks is complex but operationally possible, and issuing wholesale CBDC on a DLT platform owned and operated by a private-sector company is feasible under Swiss law.
Why it matters for CHF: For Swiss banks the binding constraint is integration cost, governance and change management — not legal permission to hold or settle a tokenised central bank claim.
Agorá applies the unified-ledger idea to correspondent banking. Tokenised central bank reserves sit on jurisdictional ledgers under the authority of each central bank; tokenised commercial bank deposits sit on a unifying ledger that orchestrates the cross-border workflow. Both kinds of money live on one permissioned, programmable platform, so a payment can settle atomically — all-or-nothing — rather than passing through a chain of sequential correspondent banks.
What was put through it
- Atomic payment-versus-payment across currencies and jurisdictions
- Conditional and always-on payment capabilities
- Sanctions screening and AML/CFT checks that today are repeated by every bank in the chain
- Real-value transactions: around CHF 800,000 across six currencies in July 2026, averaging roughly 80 seconds
Finding: Atomic settlement of wholesale cross-border transactions is achievable securely and with finality across currencies and jurisdictions, settlement finality is achievable in all participating jurisdictions, and the two-tier structure — depositor with its bank, bank with its central bank — survives intact.
Why it matters for CHF: Agorá is neither a Swiss project nor a stablecoin project: it deliberately uses tokenised reserves and tokenised deposits. It matters to CHF issuers because the SNB sits among the eight central banks and because it sketches the rails a CHF token would eventually have to connect to.
How the three BIS projects differ
Helvetia I asked whether it works. Helvetia II asked whether banks could run it. Agorá asks whether the whole cross-border system should be rebuilt this way.
| Dimension | Helvetia I | Helvetia II | Agorá |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question it was designed to answer | Is it possible, and on which ledger? | Can banks run it end to end? | Should the cross-border system be rebuilt this way? |
| Money used | Wholesale CBDC only — central bank money, no bank deposits | Wholesale CBDC only | Tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits, side by side |
| Currencies | Swiss francs | Swiss francs, with one cross-border leg | Multi-currency — six currencies in the July 2026 real-value test |
| Who took part | BIS Innovation Hub, SNB and SIX only — no commercial banks | The same three plus five commercial banks and both back offices | Eight central banks and more than 40 private institutions convened by the IIF |
| Where it ran | SDX and SIC test environments; two designs compared | The same environments, extended into core banking systems | A bespoke two-layer prototype: jurisdictional ledgers plus a unifying ledger |
| What was settled | A tokenised asset against central bank money (delivery-versus-payment) | Interbank, monetary policy and cross-border legs | Wholesale cross-border payments, payment-versus-payment, with pre-checks |
| Headline conclusion | Both designs feasible; the SIC link is simpler, on-platform CBDC more innovative | Core-banking integration is possible; a private DLT platform is lawful under Swiss law | Atomic settlement works with finality; the two-tier monetary system is preserved |
| Status | Experimental — no decision to issue | Experimental — no decision to issue | Prototype, no launch date; advancing to real-value testing |
| What it tells a CHF issuer | Choose your settlement architecture | Prove bank-side operability before promising volume | Design for the interoperability target, not just the domestic venue |
Question it was designed to answer
- Helvetia I
- Is it possible, and on which ledger?
- Helvetia II
- Can banks run it end to end?
- Agorá
- Should the cross-border system be rebuilt this way?
Money used
- Helvetia I
- Wholesale CBDC only — central bank money, no bank deposits
- Helvetia II
- Wholesale CBDC only
- Agorá
- Tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits, side by side
Currencies
- Helvetia I
- Swiss francs
- Helvetia II
- Swiss francs, with one cross-border leg
- Agorá
- Multi-currency — six currencies in the July 2026 real-value test
Who took part
- Helvetia I
- BIS Innovation Hub, SNB and SIX only — no commercial banks
- Helvetia II
- The same three plus five commercial banks and both back offices
- Agorá
- Eight central banks and more than 40 private institutions convened by the IIF
Where it ran
- Helvetia I
- SDX and SIC test environments; two designs compared
- Helvetia II
- The same environments, extended into core banking systems
- Agorá
- A bespoke two-layer prototype: jurisdictional ledgers plus a unifying ledger
What was settled
- Helvetia I
- A tokenised asset against central bank money (delivery-versus-payment)
- Helvetia II
- Interbank, monetary policy and cross-border legs
- Agorá
- Wholesale cross-border payments, payment-versus-payment, with pre-checks
Headline conclusion
- Helvetia I
- Both designs feasible; the SIC link is simpler, on-platform CBDC more innovative
- Helvetia II
- Core-banking integration is possible; a private DLT platform is lawful under Swiss law
- Agorá
- Atomic settlement works with finality; the two-tier monetary system is preserved
Status
- Helvetia I
- Experimental — no decision to issue
- Helvetia II
- Experimental — no decision to issue
- Agorá
- Prototype, no launch date; advancing to real-value testing
What it tells a CHF issuer
- Helvetia I
- Choose your settlement architecture
- Helvetia II
- Prove bank-side operability before promising volume
- Agorá
- Design for the interoperability target, not just the domestic venue
Sources: BIS Innovation Hub project pages and phase reports for Project Helvetia, the Phase I and Phase II reports, the SNB's own Helvetia page, and the BIS Project Agorá page and prototype report announcement of 27 May 2026.
The SNB's position on public blockchains
What Helvetia's design choices — and the SNB's public communication — imply for permissionless infrastructure.
Permissioned DLT vs. public permissionless chains
| Dimension | Regulated DLT platform (SDX / Helvetia) | Public permissionless chain |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger participants | Licensed, identified institutions admitted by the platform operator | Open, pseudonymous validators anywhere in the world |
| Settlement finality | Legal finality anchored in Swiss FMIA / DLT Act and platform rulebook | Economic and probabilistic; finality is a protocol assumption, not a legal one |
| Governance | Accountable, supervised operator (FINMA-licensed) | Diffuse; protocol changes decided by an open community |
| AML / CFT | Enforced at admission and at the transfer layer | Enforced only at the edges (VASPs, wallet providers) |
| Operational risk | Contained within the supervised perimeter | Depends on external client software, MEV dynamics and network congestion |
| Interoperability & reach | Limited to platform members; bridges needed to reach broader markets | Global composability with DeFi and tokenisation ecosystems |
What this means for CHF issuers
Related reading: Deposit tokens, stablecoins & synthetic CBDCs, the Swiss Federal Council consultation and CHF stablecoin business models.