Last Friday, Lloyds Bank posted a job ad on BYP Network for a Digital Currency and Innovation Senior Manager. With 30 million UK customers, Lloyds is the largest retail bank in the UK. However, compared to recent job ads by big U.S. retailers, the emphasis is less on retail payments.
The role sits within the Payments Liquidity & Settlement team, which deals with intraday payments liquidity. Talking about digital currencies, the Lloyds’ role emphasizes wholesale banking over retail, but says “there is also the potential to extend this offering to our customers.”
It’s worth noting that Lloyds is a member of Fnality, the blockchain-based multi-bank payments network that will use settlement tokens backed by central bank deposits. The Bank of England recently announced a new type of central bank account, an Omnibus account, which paved the way for Fnality to start the approval process in the UK in earnest. Hence this hire may be a sign of Fnality’s progress.
The job ad explicitly mentions liaising with Fintech partners for distributed ledger technology (DLT).
However, the role also involves sharing insights on central bank digital currencies (CBDC), a topic mentioned several times, as well as cryptoassets and stablecoins. And the candidate is expected to have first-hand experience with digital currencies or cryptocurrencies.
Two other recent high profile job ads for digital currencies were from retailers Walmart and Amazon.
