Project Mariana

• Project Mariana has successfully tested the cross-border settlement capabilities of wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs) between three major global markets.
• The project was launched in November 2022 through a collaboration between the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Banque de France, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Swiss National Bank, as a means to establish how tokenisation and automated market makers (AMM) could be applied to the global foreign exchange (FX) market, which currently trades $7.5 trillion every day.
• More specifically, it sought to determine how wCBDCs could be leveraged in tandem with decentralised finance (DeFi) to improve the effectiveness and transparency of FX trade and settlements.
• The project is purely experimental and does not indicate that any of the involved central banks intend to issue CBDC or endorse DeFi or a particular technological solution.

ABOUT BIS

• An international financial organisation owned by 60 member central banks, representing countries from around the world (including India).
  • These countries together account for about 95% of world GDP.
• Established-
• HQ- Basel, Switzerland.
• It fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks.
• It carries out its work through its meetings, programmes and through the Basel Process – hosting international groups pursuing global financial stability and facilitating their interaction.