The teams that proposed use cases in an initial challenge conducted earlier this year represent veteran financial companies, fintech firms, technology firms, and private teams. The use cases that were selected by an internal committee at the central bank deal with a variety of functions: connectivity between the digital shekel, other payment systems, and cash; use of the advanced functionalities offered by the digital shekel, such as subwallets, conditional payments, and split payments; and the implementation of various technologies while using the digital shekel as a means of payment. The central bank intends to put participant proposals to the test in a digital sandbox in August, with products developed to be showcased at a concluding conference at the end of October. Bank of Israel deputy governor Andrew Abir says: “We have learned quite a lot from the process thus far in building the Challenge and in discussions with the teams that have shown interest, and I am certain that we will learn much more from the case uses that will be developed by the selected participants. The digital shekel’s potential to create innovation in the payments array will depend on the private sector’s ability to leverage the platform that the Bank of Israel will build, which is what makes this Challenge so important.” Teams selected to participate in the Challenge include:

Bits of Gold Brinks Israel Ltd. + Committed Digital Ltd COTI Credics Technologies LTD Team Energy, led by Viacheslav Pozharskii Fireblocks Idemia France SAS Kima Finance Open Finance LTD 0xPay Paypal Israel LTD Qedit Shva Team Levana, led by Doron Asor