The Italian Banking Affiliation, or ABI, has affirmed its help for the implementation of a sovereign European digital forex by starting pilot research on a digital euro challenge.

In accordance with an announcement, the affiliation is working with its analysis and improvement arm, ABI Lab, and industrial banks within the nation to develop an experimental digital euro.

The ABI’s digital euro research will reportedly give attention to two main areas — technical feasibility evaluation and central financial institution digital forex programmability to create a distinction from current digital cost strategies.

Italian enterprise community agency SIA will help the consortium within the technical feasibility research. SIA can be a collaborator in Venture Spunta, the ABI’s blockchain-based interbank settlement layer.

Whereas the challenge is specializing in an experimental digital euro, there are not any indications of any involvement by Italy’s central financial institution. As an alternative, different collaborators like digital companies outfit Reply and consulting big PwC are named as companions within the pilot research.

For ABI, this system is a part of an effort to arrange Italian banks for a future that might embody a digital euro. Commenting on the challenge’s targets and aims, a spokesperson for ABI advised Cointelegraph:

“The purpose of the initiative is to proactively contribute to public debate and help banks working in Italy as they put together for the longer term. It doesn’t purpose to anticipate the [European Central Bank] resolution on the adoption of a digital forex however somewhat to discover doable use instances and mirror on the implications of its doable implementation beforehand.”

Again in December, an ECB official stated the financial institution’s consideration part for a digital euro might go nicely into 2021. Certainly, earlier stories said {that a} regional central financial institution digital forex was a minimum of 5 years away from being created.

In France, the central financial institution is already working a number of testing protocols for its experimental digital euro. Ethereum developer ConsenSys is among the many blockchain companies collaborating with the accomplice companies testing the digital euro on behalf of the Financial institution of France.