The Bank of Israel has initiated the “Digital Shekel Challenge” to explore the potential of a central bank digital currency ( CBDC) system inspired by the BIS Innovation Hub’s “Project Rosalind.” Fourteen teams from various sectors have been selected to propose innovative use cases. The challenge aims to integrate digital shekel with other payment systems and develop advanced functionalities, with results to be showcased in October.
Digital Shekel Challenge: Bank of Israel Engages 14 Teams for Digital Currency Innovation
This article was published more than a year ago. Some information may no longer be current.
WRITTEN BY
SHARE
Bank of Israel Launches Digital Shekel Challenge
The Bank of Israel, the country’s central bank, announced the launch of the “Digital Shekel Challenge” on Tuesday. Inspired by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub’s “Project Rosalind,” this initiative aims to explore the potential development and uses of a digital shekel system. The challenge has drawn significant interest from the fintech and finance communities both within Israel and abroad.
The announcement details:
The challenge’s sandbox will begin operating at the beginning of August, and will enable the selected teams to develop the use cases they have proposed. The products of the challenge will be presented at a concluding conference that the Bank of Israel will hold at the end of October.
The Digital Shekel Challenge invites teams from the private sector, public sector, and academia to propose innovative use cases for the digital shekel. These proposals cover a range of fields, including connectivity between the digital shekel and other payment systems, advanced functionalities like subwallets and conditional payments, and the implementation of various technologies.
Fourteen teams have been selected based on criteria such as innovation, economic compatibility, and the ability to support the motivations set forth by the Bank of Israel. The selected teams are Bits of Gold, Brinks Israel Ltd. + Committed Digital Ltd., COTI, Credics Technologies Ltd., Team Energy, Fireblocks, Idemia France SAS, Kima Finance, Open Finance Ltd., 0xpay, Paypal Israel Ltd., Qedit, Shva, and Team Levana.
Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Andrew Abir expressed his enthusiasm, stating, “I am pleased at the tremendous response to the Digital Shekel Challenge, and I thank the teams that have agreed to provide their time, resources, and capabilities to actively cooperate with us in the thinking, planning, and design of the digital shekel. We have learned quite a lot from the process thus far in building the Challenge and in discussions with the teams that have shown interest, and I am certain that we will learn much more from the case uses that will be developed by the selected participants.”
He added:
The digital shekel’s potential to create innovation in the payments array will depend on the private sector’s ability to leverage the platform that the Bank of Israel will build, which is what makes this challenge so important.
What do you think about the Digital Shekel Challenge? Let us know in the comments section below.
