Bank of France to test central bank digital currency in 2020

The central bank's governor François Villeroy de Galhau has announced that the bank will start testing digital currency soon, during a conference hosted by the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR). Furthermore, the authority intents to launch a call for projects before the end of the first quarter of 2020, per the AFP report.

Even if France is keen on contributing to the digital currency innovation, the country wants to experiment with the new technology ‘in a serious and methodical manner’. The news came on the heels of Bruno Le Maire, France's Minister of the Economic and Finance, calling for the creation of a ‘public digital currency’ at a European Union (EU) meeting.

The minister previously expressed his opposition against Facebook's cryptocurrency project Libra, saying that France would block the project if it fails to address concerns over the potential threat it poses to monetary sovereignty, according to The Block Crypto. 

Meanwhile, People's Bank of China is also experimenting with its own digital currency, DC/EP. However, China is a difficult environment to test out the new digital currency, according to a bank representative, and a country with a smaller population could be better since the cycle for currency circulation is shorter.