Bank of England Now Accept Proof-of-Concept Wallet Application

The Bank of England (BoE) has started accepting applications for suppliers who wish to provide sample wallets for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). 

Markedly, the central bank of London has been seeking proof-of-concept for a wallet that can hold CBDC and has since last week requested that applications be submitted to that effect. The request which was made on the United Kingdom government’s Digital Marketplace outlined the guidelines of what the proof-of-concept should be able to achieve.

Some criteria of the sample wallet are the ability to perform normal operations like a signup process, updating of details, show transaction history, displaying balances, and other notifications.

Importantly, the sample wallet must be able to load and unload with a CBDC. It should request peer-to-peer payment either through an account ID or a QR code. In addition to all these, it should be able to complete online transactions.

A sum of almost $245,000 has been budgeted for the development of the CBDC sample wallet which is expected to execute certain actions like complete transactions and payment requests. Notably, it is part of an initiative of the BIS Innovation Hub in London to come up with application program interfaces (APIs) for a digital currency, intending to allow interoperability for CBDCs.

Bank of England Opens CBDC Research

In other words, this initiative which is dubbed Project Rosalind is focused on how a CBDC ledger can interface with private-sector payment providers. This is because the development of a CBDC is partly dependent on its use cases and the ability to be integrated into traditional financial systems. 

The Bank of England started making more efforts into CBDC in March when it signed a deal with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) to launch a twelve-month research project on digital currencies. At that time, the bank stated that it was only for research purposes and not to roll out a functional CBDC.

Initially, its research started a few months before then in 2021 when it listed a couple of banks and experts to assist. Advanced finance and technology experts such as Google, Consensys, Mastercard, and Spotify were contacted to offer advice.