Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Bank of England (BoE) have started preparatory CBDC studies that may lead to the creation of the national digital currency of the country. The news comes from a document published by the HM Treasury.
The deputy governor of the Bank of England, Sir Jon Cunliffe, and the director-general of financial services at HM Treasury, Katharine Braddick, were named to be co-chair for the task force. The task force will combine the efforts of all relevant statutory bodies in the country regarding the development of a CBDC.
The task force has to look into preliminary issues that are associated with the design but also with the implementation and operation of a CBDC in the country. They will also collaborate with fintech, academia, and all relevant industries in order to discover the potential issues that come with creating the CBDC.
An eye will also be kept on the international development of CBDCs. BoE has also revealed that it will run its separate internal CBDC unit, which will be headed by Cunliffe.
Since Brexit, the UK has announced plans to focus on digital currencies, such as in November 2020, when the chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, declared that Brexit was a chance for the UK to update its financial services sector.
Following Brexit, Sunak took charge of an important policy shift towards harnessing novel fintech innovations, such as CBDCs and stablecoins. John Glen, the UK financial services minister, has named stablecoin regulations as being an important focus for the government when it comes to crypto regulations.