Recorded just a day after the digital euro cleared a major regulatory hurdle, Swiss National Bank (SNB) Vice Chairman Dr. Antoine Martin shared his thoughts on what it really means to "future-proof" money. The discussion cut through the CBDC hype, explaining why Switzerland is taking a very different path and what it's building instead.
The euro area is a patchwork of countries with payment systems that don't always talk to each other — that's a big part of why the digital euro exists. In contrast, Switzerland's payment system already works uniformly throughout the country. A digital Franc wouldn't add much value to how the current system already does the job well. That said, the door isn't fully closed: if the digital euro turns out to be a huge success, the SNB says it could reconsider.
"Future-proofing" means upgrading the plumbing, not chasing headlines.
For the SNB, it's not about unveiling a flashy new product — it's about making sure central bank money stays at the heart of the system as everything else evolves. That means quietly modernizing where it actually counts: rolling out instant payments at home, exploring an early-stage link with the ECB so cross-border payments can move faster, and hedging its technological bets on the wholesale side with two parallel projects — Project Helvetia with SDX and a synchronized settlement approach with BX Digital.
Project Agora is about killing cross-border friction, not building a new currency.
Led by the BIS and backed by around 40 regulated institutions, Project Agora is tackling one of the most tedious parts of cross-border payments: banks repeating the same AML and KYC checks over and over as money moves through the chain. The goal is to cut that repetition out and make the whole process faster, without losing central bank money as the anchor of the system. Dr. Antoine Martin was also clear about who does what: central banks are there to protect safety and public trust, while the private sector is the one actually driving innovation forward.
Dr. Antoine Martin, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank
Manisha Tank, Broadcaster & TV Presenter
Point Zero Forum 2026 | Zurich, Switzerland