The potential introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could potentially upend bank business models depending on their design and implementation. It’s a topic, which has implications well beyond monetary policy and the nature of money. 

The rapid rise in the popularity of crypto currencies such as bitcoin, Facebook's plans around creating stablecoins backed by existing national currencies and the growing digitisation of financial services has prompted central banks to seriously investigate the viability of introducing CBDCs.

One central bank that has been very active in investigating this area through Project Helvetia, is the Swiss National Bank (SNB) along with its collaborators the Bank for International Settlements and the SIX Exchange. 

To gain a better understanding of project Helvetia, the possible impact of CBDCs on capital markets, clearing, foreign exchange and governance we approached Martin Schlegel, an alternate member of the board at the Swiss National Bank for his insights.

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