Project Jura: Cross-Border Wholesale CBDC Settlement Between Switzerland and France
Project Jura extended the wholesale CBDC experimentation pioneered by Project Helvetia into the cross-border domain. Conducted jointly by the Swiss National Bank (SNB), the Banque de France (BdF), and the BIS Innovation Hub Swiss Centre, the project explored the settlement of tokenised financial instruments between French and Swiss financial institutions using wholesale central bank digital currencies denominated in euro and Swiss franc. The experiment demonstrated that cross-border DLT-based settlement in central bank money is technically feasible while raising important policy questions about monetary sovereignty, capital flows, and international coordination.
Design and Architecture
Project Jura was designed to test a specific use case: the direct transfer of tokenised euro-denominated commercial paper between French and Swiss financial institutions, settled against tokenised wCBDC in both euro and Swiss franc. The experiment required the coordination of two central bank money systems — one issuing tokenised euros and the other tokenised Swiss francs — on a shared DLT platform.
The technical architecture employed a sub-network approach, in which separate DLT environments for the euro wCBDC, the Swiss franc wCBDC, and the tokenised financial instruments were connected through a shared settlement layer. This sub-network design enabled each central bank to maintain control over the issuance and redemption of its own wCBDC while allowing cross-currency settlement to occur on the shared layer.
The settlement mechanism employed dual-notary signing to achieve atomic delivery-versus-payment across the sub-networks. Both the securities leg and the cash leg of a transaction were validated by notary nodes controlled by the respective central banks, ensuring that the transfer of the tokenised instrument and the payment in wCBDC occurred simultaneously and irrevocably. This approach preserved the principle that each central bank retains ultimate control over its own money while enabling cross-border atomic settlement.
Participants and Governance
Beyond the three principal institutions — the SNB, BdF, and BISIH — Project Jura involved a consortium of private sector participants. Major French and Swiss banks participated as test counterparties, providing the commercial perspective necessary to evaluate the practical viability of the settlement model. SIX Digital Exchange contributed its DLT platform expertise, while Accenture provided technical implementation support.
The governance structure of the project reflected the need to balance the interests and prerogatives of two sovereign central banks. A joint steering committee comprising senior representatives of the SNB, BdF, and BISIH oversaw the project’s strategic direction, while working groups addressed technical, legal, and policy questions. The governance arrangements ensured that each central bank retained veto authority over aspects of the project that touched on its monetary policy mandate or financial stability responsibilities.
Key Findings
The project produced several findings of lasting significance for the development of cross-border DLT-based settlement infrastructure.
Technical feasibility was confirmed. The experiment demonstrated that tokenised financial instruments could be issued, transferred, and settled across borders using wCBDC denominated in two currencies, with atomic delivery-versus-payment ensuring settlement finality. The sub-network architecture proved capable of maintaining the separation of monetary domains while enabling cross-border settlement on a shared platform.
The sub-network design preserved monetary sovereignty. Each central bank maintained exclusive control over the issuance, redemption, and operational management of its own wCBDC. The tokenised euros issued by the BdF were subject to French monetary authority, and the tokenised Swiss francs issued by the SNB were subject to Swiss monetary authority, even though both were used on a shared settlement platform. This design feature addressed one of the primary policy concerns associated with cross-border CBDC: the potential erosion of monetary sovereignty through the circulation of foreign digital currency within a domestic jurisdiction.
Legal and regulatory questions remain substantial. The cross-border settlement of tokenised securities in wCBDC raises questions about applicable law, regulatory jurisdiction, and the enforcement of rights in the event of a participant default. The legal framework governing the tokenised commercial paper, the wCBDC tokens, and the settlement process involved the laws of at least two jurisdictions, creating potential conflicts that would need to be resolved through bilateral agreements or international conventions.
Foreign exchange considerations are material. Cross-border settlement in wCBDC inherently involves foreign exchange transactions — the conversion of one wCBDC into another to complete the cash leg of a cross-border securities trade. The project explored the use of automated market-making mechanisms on the DLT platform to facilitate FX conversion, but the policy implications of DLT-based FX markets — including their interaction with existing FX market infrastructure and central bank FX operations — require further analysis.
Implications for Cross-Border Settlement
Project Jura has significant implications for the future architecture of cross-border securities settlement. The traditional model of cross-border settlement relies on correspondent banking relationships, custodian networks, and interlinked CSD systems that introduce multiple intermediaries, settlement delays, and reconciliation costs. A DLT-based model with wCBDC settlement offers the prospect of compressing this chain to a single atomic transaction, reducing both the time and cost of cross-border settlement while eliminating the counterparty exposures that accumulate during the settlement window.
However, the transition from a proof-of-concept experiment to a production-grade cross-border settlement system involves challenges that Project Jura identified but did not fully resolve. Scalability is one: the experiment involved a limited number of transactions between a small group of participants, and the performance of the settlement system under production-scale volumes remains to be demonstrated. Interoperability with existing payment and settlement systems is another: a wCBDC-based cross-border settlement facility would need to coexist with the SWIFT network, the TARGET2 and SIC payment systems, and the existing CSD infrastructure, requiring integration solutions that do not yet exist at scale.
The governance of a multi-central-bank wCBDC settlement platform raises questions that go beyond bilateral arrangements. If the model pioneered by Project Jura were extended to multiple currencies and jurisdictions, the governance structure would need to accommodate a potentially large number of central banks with diverse mandates, legal frameworks, and policy preferences. International organisations such as the BIS and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) may play a coordinating role, but the development of multilateral governance frameworks for cross-border wCBDC systems is still in its infancy.
Relationship to Other CBDC Projects
Project Jura sits within a broader ecosystem of CBDC experimentation involving central banks worldwide. The project’s findings complement and inform several related initiatives.
Project Helvetia established the domestic foundations for wCBDC-based settlement in Switzerland, demonstrating that the SNB could issue tokenised Swiss francs for use on the SDX platform. Project Jura extended this capability to the cross-border context, adding the complexity of multi-currency settlement and multi-jurisdictional governance.
Project Mariana, another BIS Innovation Hub initiative involving the SNB, BdF, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, explored the use of automated market makers (AMMs) for cross-border wCBDC exchange. Where Project Jura focused on securities settlement, Mariana concentrated on the FX conversion mechanism, testing whether DeFi-inspired AMM protocols could provide efficient and reliable FX conversion for wholesale CBDC transactions.
For analysis of Project Mariana, see our dedicated coverage of the Mariana experiment.
The ECB’s exploration of a digital euro, while focused primarily on the retail domain, has implications for wholesale cross-border settlement that intersect with the findings of Project Jura. If the ECB proceeds with a digital euro, the interoperability between a wholesale digital euro and the Swiss franc wCBDC tested in Jura would be a natural area for further exploration.
Outlook for Swiss Cross-Border DLT Settlement
The path from Project Jura’s proof of concept to a production cross-border settlement facility is long but increasingly well-defined. The technical architecture has been validated, the policy questions have been identified, and the bilateral relationship between the SNB and BdF provides a foundation for further development.
The next steps are likely to involve the expansion of the experiment to include additional currencies, jurisdictions, and asset classes. The inclusion of a third central bank would test the scalability of the governance model and the technical architecture, while the settlement of a broader range of financial instruments — including tokenised bonds, fund units, and derivatives — would demonstrate the versatility of the platform.
The commercial viability of cross-border wCBDC settlement ultimately depends on the willingness of financial institutions to adopt the new infrastructure and the ability of the system to deliver measurable improvements in efficiency, cost, and risk reduction compared to existing correspondent banking and CSD link arrangements. The private sector participants in Project Jura provided positive feedback on the potential benefits, but the transition from experimental participation to production commitment requires a level of infrastructure maturity and regulatory certainty that is not yet fully established.
Switzerland’s role as a hub for cross-border financial services positions it well to be a leader in the development of DLT-based cross-border settlement. The experience gained through Projects Helvetia and Jura, combined with the institutional infrastructure provided by SDX and the legal framework established by the DLT Act, creates a foundation upon which a production-grade cross-border settlement facility could be built.
Donovan Vanderbilt is a contributing editor at ZUG DLT, covering distributed ledger technology law, regulation, and institutional adoption from Zurich. The Vanderbilt Portfolio AG provides research and analysis on Swiss digital asset infrastructure.