The Bank of England (BoE) has announced the membership of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) Engagement and Technology Forums and has included representatives of Asos, PayPal and Spotify. The BoE forum will explore the practicalities of designing, rolling out and operating a CBDC. It also includes representatives from HSBC, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and Visa.
The central bank said, “The Forum will help the bank to understand the technological challenges of designing, implementing and operating a CBDC.”
Some of the members of the forum are Anne Boden, CEO at Starling Bank, Georges Elhedery, co-CEO Global Banking & Markets, HSBC, Arun Kohli, COO EMEA, Morgan Stanley, Tracey McDermott, Group Head of Conduct & Financial Crime, Standard Chartered Bank, Paul Thwaite, CEO Commercial Banking, NatWest Group Stephen Gilderdale, Chief Product Officer, SWIFT, Imran Gulamhuseinwala, Trustee, Open Banking Charlotte Hogg, CEO, Visa Europe and Matthew Hunt, Interim CEO, PayUK.
Earlier this month, while speaking about UK’s plan to launch a CBDC, NatWest bank chairman Howard Davies told the media, “I suspect that within three to five years we will see that operating in the UK on a sort of pilot basis to start with.”
“We have to answer the question – exactly what problems are we sorting out here? We have got to be very clear on what it is that we think the digital currency will do, and what it will do to improve the system.”