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The Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) has named Microsoft, Banco Inter, 7Comm and Chainlink as participants in a new study under the Phase 2 pilot of Drex, its central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The four participants will partner with the BCB to facilitate trade finance payments using CBDC.
The proposed solution will leverage blockchain technology and oracles, provided by Chainlink, to automate supply chain management and improve trade finance processes.
An oracle provides trusted information from real-world data sources that can be used to power smart contracts. In effect, an oracle converts real-world data into on-chain data to trigger transactions.
The goal of the pilot is to demonstrate the feasibility of automated settlement of agricultural commodity transactions across borders, across platforms and via different currencies.
Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) will enable interoperability between Drex and a foreign central bank, ensuring that transactions are compatible and settled efficiently.
The pilot will involve tokenising electronic bills of lading (eBoL) on-chain and using supply chain data to trigger payments to exporters throughout the shipping process.
The solution aims to demonstrate that blockchain-based trade finance can be used to facilitate both delivery versus payment (DvP) and payment versus payment (PvP).
Participants hope to show that use of CBDC can increase efficiency, security and transparency in global agricultural supply chains.
The trade finance use case is one of 13 “themes” that the BCB selected in October to be trialled under Phase 2 of the Drex pilot.
These themes include other use cases such as discounting of receivables, optimising foreign exchange (FX) markets, transactions with agribusiness assets and transactions with automobiles.
