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The deal will see Emtech’s CBDC solutions and its regulatory and compliance sandboxes integrated into Accenture’s offerings.
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Information and financial technology services company Accenture has invested in fintech startup Emtech, which provides software-as-a-service to central banks and fintech companies. Accenture plans to integrate Emtech products into its core banking services.
Emtech was founded in 2019 by former IBM Blockchain executive Carmelle Cadet. It counts seven central banks — those of Ghana, Nigeria, the Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and the Bahamas — among its clients. It also created a central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof-of-concept for the Bank of the Republic of Haiti.
Services for central banks and fintechs
In addition to the infrastructure for CBDC, Emtech offers a regulatory sandbox feature and is developing a compliance feature for financial service providers. Emtech states that it has over 200 fintech clients. Cadet said in a statement:
“This investment and collaboration are the result of a shared vision to guide banks in modernizing their infrastructure and processes for the era of tokenization. Successful digital transformation at this scale is a major undertaking that requires cutting-edge technology and industry expertise.”
The terms of the Accenture investment were not disclosed. Emtech will also join the Accenture Venture Project Spotlight accelerator. In August 2023, Emtech received $4 million in seed investment, following a $6 million pre-seed investment in 2022.
Emtech uses a unified ledger model for its CBDC services. In 2021, it partnered with Hedera Hashgraph to offer its Hedera Token Service and the Hedera Consensus Services. In July 2023, it introduced its CBDC Innovation Kit simulator, featuring pre-built application programming interfaces.
Related: BIS head describes ideal ‘unified ledger’ for central banks and other financial users
Coming together in familiar territory
Accenture is not new to the CBDC scene. It has worked with the Bank of Canada, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the European Central Bank and the Swedish Riksbank.
Source: Emtech
Accenture and Emtech collaborate on the Digital Dollar Project, a foundation foundation spearheaded by former Commodity Futures Trading Commission head J. Christopher Giancarlo. Accenture is a founding member of the organization, and Emtech joined its Technical Sandbox Program in 2022.
The overwhelming majority of the world’s central banks are researching or testing CBDCs.
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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
