Blockchain for Banking News

UK CBDC update: Digital Pound Lab amongst next steps

digital pound CBDC blueprint components

Today the Bank of England provided a status update on the progress of the design phase of the Digital Pound. Alongside the main report it published an initial design note as part of its work on a blueprint for the central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The blueprint is one of four streams of work, with the others being experiments, a national conversation (engagement) and an assessment of the costs and benefits.

Key next steps include multiple design notes for the blueprint and the creation of a Digital Pound Lab to allow hands on testing of APIs, use cases and business models. The Technology Forum will be wound down in favor of deeper, more direct engagement with the support of the Lab.

The first design note is quite high level, briefly describing what will be included in the scheme, technology and operations. Previously the central bank published more detailed reports on specific CBDC topics, such as a December paper on privacy.

The current design phase started in 2023 and looks like it will run until at least the end of the year, although the Bank of England didn’t mention timeframes in today’s paper. At the end of the design phase a decision on whether to launch the digital pound will be made.

During 2024, on separate occasions the Governor and Deputy Governor said the launch decision will partly depend on the progress of tokenized deposits – if banks don’t move faster, they will need to introduce a CBDC. On that point, UK banks are progressing the Regulated Liability Network.


Image Copyright: Bank of England