Major British Banks Testing Tokenized Deposits

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According to a Bloomberg report, some prominent British baking companies, including Barclays, have participated in a trial to explore the use of tokenized deposits. (Or: In a recent Bloomberg article, it was mentioned that Barclays and other notable British baking corporations took part in an experiment focusing on tokenized deposit technology.)

This February marked the beginning of a trial involving not only the defendant but also Mastercard and Visa, the two largest global credit card corporations.

This tech isn’t quite ready yet for commercial use, as the related research project may last as long as three years. Preliminary findings from the current study are anticipated to emerge by late summer.

In simple terms, tokenization is gaining popularity in the UK. Recently, a government-supported tech organization released a report urging local businesses to explore this innovative technology, which has the potential to enhance the performance of the banking industry. Previously, they also recommended that regulators establish definitive guidelines for tokenization.

This month, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which represents many central banks globally, introduced a project named Agora. Agora’s goal is to bring central and commercial banks together using common infrastructure. The Bank of Japan and Bank of France are some of its initial collaborators.

The main aim of Agora is to fix the main problems of cross-border payments. 

At the 2024 Innovation Hub presented by the BIS, Agora isn’t the sole project; another one is Project Aurum, concentrating on the privacy aspects of retail central bank digital currencies.

Currently, the prospect of “Britcoin,” or the digital version of the British pound, remains unclear based on recent news. The Bank of England initiated investigations into this digital currency as early as 2021.

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2024-04-16 09:11