Until recently the central bank digital currency (CBDC) emphasis has been on consumer oriented or retail usage. In the last few months, there's been considerably more talk about wholesale applications. In the past, the primary central bank interest in wholesale CBDC was for cross border payments. One example is the mBridge project from the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE.

A key driver of Europe's current wholesale exploration is the potential usage of DLT in capital markets. To a lesser extent, it could also support tokenized deposits. The BIS recently proposed the concept of a Unified Ledger, a network that could support CBDC, tokenized deposits and other digital assets. Europe plans to incorporate this into its wholesale trials.

Examples of wholesale projects to support tokenized bank depoits include Brazil's DREX and Korea's recently announced wholesale initiative.