French Central Bank Job Posting Reveals Digital Currency Program

The central bank of France, Banque de France, is seeking a blockchain analyst who will help the bank define a program for implementing digital currency.

In a job opening posted on October 16th and listed under the Financial Stability and Operations branch of the bank, the bank called for an analyst with experience in crypto-economics, game theory and public or private blockchain. The bank is also hiring a development engineer to study the application of blockchain to key banking functions. Banque de France declined to comment.

For the analyst position, the institution cited Quorum, Hyperledger and Corda as examples of private blockchain experience and the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains as examples of public blockchain experience.

The bank also wants the analyst to experiment with other blockchain specialists in the eurosystem, participate in blockchain proof-of-concepts within and outside the bank and identify economic issues related to how monetary policy is conducted.

Historically, Banque de France has been aggressively focused on blockchain and not bitcoin.

In December 2016, the bank ran a digital identity trial that tested using blockchain in the management of identification markers used to establish the identity of creditors within the Single Euro Payments Area. A few months after that trial, the bank’s governor announced that it would open a fintech innovation lab, which would include blockchain startups.

Despite its interest in the technology underlying bitcoin, the bank proposed banning insurance companies, bank companies and trust companies from touching crypto-assets in March 2018.

The bank’s position softened recently, however, with Denis Beau, a deputy governor of the bank, calling for a global regulatory framework on crypto-assets earlier this year.