BIS Establishes New Innovation Hub in Canada, Teams Up with Bank of Canada
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) unveiled its Toronto Innovation Hub on June 13, in collaboration with the Bank of Canada. This hub aims to lead financial initiatives in Canada and expand its reach to Latin America and the Caribbean.
Exploring Cutting-Edge Financial Market Infrastructures
The BIS Innovation Hub in Toronto marks the first in North America and the seventh globally, established by BIS in partnership with various central banks. Under the leadership of Miguel Diaz, the Toronto hub will delve into innovative technologies to enhance the efficiency and inclusivity of the financial system in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Revealed in the official announcement, the BIS Innovation Hub will concentrate on three key projects: developing next-generation financial market infrastructures, creating suptech solutions for regulatory and supervisory purposes, and spearheading advancements in open finance concepts.
Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, expressed his excitement for the hub, emphasizing its role as a platform for central banks to explore financial technology trends and conduct experiments.
Fostering Financial Innovation
Before the introduction of the Toronto hub, the BIS innovation unit had been actively driving financial innovation. On April 19, 2024, the unit launched the FuSSE (Fully Scalable Settlement Engine) project to modernize financial market infrastructures to meet the demands of the digital era.
This groundbreaking initiative, a collaboration between the BIS and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), follows an agreement signed by the two institutions in September 2023.
Diving into Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), the BIS unveiled its 2024 CBDC plans in January to initiate the second phase of its project “Aurum.” The BIS also outlined plans to delve into advanced data analytics and tokenization.
In April 2024, the BIS introduced project Agora to investigate the tokenization of cross-border payments by central banks. Project Agora involves seven monetary authorities from different regions, including the UK, Switzerland, Mexico, South Korea, New York, Japan, and Europe.
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