BC presents 14 selected for Real digital pilot, banks dominate

The Central Bank of Brazil presented the 14 selected institutions to participate in the Real digital pilot, the Brazilian CBDC. In the disclosure, it is clear that most of the chosen institutions are regulated banks.

While not much of a surprise since the BC had announced that only regulated institutions could participate, some companies in the cryptocurrency market were hoping to partner with the project.

With the choice made, institutions can now at least conduct tests with blockchain technology for asset tokenization. The central bank is expected to complete the main tests by the end of 2023.

See who has been selected to participate in the Real digital pilot

In a note, the Central Bank of Brazil announced that more than 100 institutions have sent registrations to participate in the pilot, including individual and consortium applications. More than 36 interesting proposals came in for evaluation by the municipality, which made its choice.

For example, the Executive Management Committee (CEG) announced that the 14 institutions chosen for the current phase are:

• Bradsco
• Nubank
• Banco Inter, Microsoft and 7Comm
• Santander, Santander Asset Management, F1RST and Toro CTVM
• Itau Unibanco
• Basa, TecBan, Pinbank, Dinamo, Cresol, Banco Arbi, Ntokens, Clear Sale, Foxbit, CPqD, AWS and Parfin
• SFCoop: Ailos, Cresol, Sicoob, Sicredi and Unicred
• XP, Visa
• BV bank
• BTG Bank
• ABC Bank, Hamsa, LoopiPay
• Banco B3, B3 and B3 Digitas
• ABBC: Brasileiro de Crédito, Ribeirão Preto, Original, ABC, BS2 and Seguro banks; ABBC, BBChain, Microsoft and BIP
• Bank of Brazil.

Of these, there are several institutions that are already involved in the cryptocurrency market, such as Nubank, Santander, Itaú, Foxbit, XP, Banco BTG and B3 Digitras. Others are already conducting tests with blockchain, such as CPqD, Parfin, AWS, Microsoft, among others.

According to the central bank, institutions should be included in the digital pilot Real by the end of June 2023.

What will the chosen institutions do now?

During the pilot phase of the RD project, tests will be performed on the privacy and programmability functionalities through the implementation of a specific use case: a delivery versus payment (DvP) protocol for a federal public safety between customers of different institutions, together with the services related to that transaction.

This use case makes it possible to focus tests on privacy, as it involves the exchange of information between the different platform participants, while at the same time evaluating the programmability of the services offered and their interoperability.

Real digital should enter the implementation phase by the end of 2024 and the municipality hopes to have all tests with satisfactory results.