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The Bank of Israel held today in Tel Aviv the concluding conference of the Digital Shekel Challenge, a technological experiment conducted in recent months inspired by the BIS Innovation Hub's Project Rosalind. As part of the challenge, 14 entities were selected to develop innovative use cases for the digital shekel, which they presented today. The use cases were developed on the technological sandbox created by the Bank of Israel and were fully operational end-to-end. The Digital Shekel Challenge and the concluding conference represent a significant milestone in the progress of the digital shekel project and the involvement of the private sector in this project. The use cases presented demonstrate the potential of the digital shekel to help create advanced payment solutions and lead innovation in Israel's payment system.
The recording of the conference will be available for viewing in a few days.
The use cases were presented to the audience and the judging panel of the Digital Shekel Challenge: Ornit Shinar, Daniel Eidan, Merav Harnoy, and Oded Salomy. Following a scoring process by the judging panel as well as the audience, the "People's Choice" as well as the top three places were announced. The first place was awarded to Team Siara for developing the use case of Platform for Returning Debtors to Economic Growth Path using the Digital Shekel, the second place was awarded to Team Paypal for developing the use case of Automation for Smart Payroll Payments using the Digital Shekel, the third place was awarded to Team IDEMIA for developing the use case of Offline payments solution, and the "People's Choice" was awarded to Team QEDIT for developing the use case of Trust for Digital Transactions using Advanced Cryptography.
During the conference, lectures were given by Dr. Nir Yaacobi from the Digital Shekel Project team, who presented preliminary findings from research on user preferences for the digital shekel, and Atty. Rinat Brendel from the Privacy Protection Authority at the Ministry of Justice, who discussed various aspects of privacy in the digital shekel.
Deputy Governor, Mr. Andrew Abir said in his opening remarks: "The digital shekel could serve as a platform for cooperation between the public and private sectors, where the Bank of Israel lays the infrastructure upon which the private sector can offer services to end users and develop innovative and advanced use cases. This infrastructure will help to increase competition in the payment system, as it will allow a wide variety of entities to operate in the market. It may also push competition in the deposit market, if it is decided that the Bank of Israel will pay interest to holders of the digital shekel. The challenge was an exceptional opportunity to collaborate with the industry and test in an environment closest to a real one the potential of the digital shekel to support innovation. I thank all the teams who invested time and resources to participate in the challenge and contribute to our thinking about the digital shekel."
Below is the list of entities that participated in the challenge and the use cases they presented:
IDEMIA: Offline payments solution
Shva: Conversion between cash and digital shekel using ATMs
QEDIT: Trust for Digital Transactions using Advanced Cryptography
Energy: Transparent, Scalable Contract Automation for Construction and Every Industry
Siara: Platform for Returning Debtors to Economic Growth Path using the Digital Shekel
Kima: Trading Securities using Digital Shekel
Credics Technologies: Family Allowance Management Using Digital Shekel Wallets
PayPal: Automation for Smart Payroll Payments using the Digital Shekel
Brinks, Committed: Conversion of Cash to Digital Shekel in Thousands of Points of Sale
Bits of Gold: Secure Crypto-to-Cash Exchange with Digital Shekel
0xPay: Managing IoT/non-human Device with Digital Shekel Wallets
COTI: Decentralized Marketplace for Event Tickets
Fireblocks: AI-Powered Digital Shekel Travel Payments
Open Finance: Travel Insurance using Digital Shekel