The National Bank of Georgia will participate as an observer in the mBridge project coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub (BISIH) Hong Kong Centre. The central bank will also be able to leverage knowledge and expertise shared by the Aurum project led by the BISIH Hong Kong Centre.

The BIS established the BIS Innovation Hub (the "BISIH") in 2019, to foster innovation and greater collaboration amongst the central banking community globally, enhance the understanding of financial technology and contribute to the development of innovative solutions to benefit and enhance the financial system;

Project mBridge experiments with cross-border payments using a custom-built common platform based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) upon which multiple central banks can issue and exchange their respective central bank digital currencies (multi-CBDCs). Economies such as Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Mainland China and Hong Kong SAR were involved in the initial testing, and about 10 countries participating as observers.

Project Aurum, is a retail CBDC project, which studies architectures of intermediated CBDC and CBDC-backed Stablecoins and develops technology prototype for them. The technology prototype is designed under the principles of safety, flexibility and privacy. BIS member central banks can access the concluded tech manuals and other necessary materials for further experimentation, which could help foster progress on the development of retail CBDC.  

By participating in these projects, the National Bank will have the opportunity to gain the experience of other jurisdictions with regard to CBDC, to test its own CBDC technology in various directions, and to receive all the benefits that the BIS Innovation Hub offers to central banks within these projects, at the initial stages.”