"Not There Yet": Bank Of Canada Experiments With Blockchain Wholesale Payment System

The Bank of Canada has issued a report on Project Jasper, its recently completed experiment testing the viability of distributed ledger technology (DLT) as the basis for a wholesale payment system. The experiment was a combined effort by the Bank of Canada and Payments Canada, along with Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, HSBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Canada Trust. The experiment revealed that such technology is not more beneficial, at least for now, than the current centralized system of wholesale payments. However, the successful proof-of-concept highlighted best practices for wide-scale public/private cooperation and uncovered other opportunities for the implementation of the technology within the financial industry.