Britain Central Bank Builds Payments Infrastructure to Support Digital Pound

In the latest development, the Bank of England (BoE) is developing its new payments infrastructure that supports transactions for its possible upcoming central bank digital currency (CBDC) aka the Digital pound.

This news comes just two after we reported that Britain’s central bank - Bank of England - is working on its own central bank digital currency.

Over the last few months, government institutions and big economies have accelerated their developments with a Digital currency, and the Great Britain is one among them. As per the CoinDesk report, BoE will ensure that the new payments infrastructure that its recently upgraded RTGS payments infrastructure, used by many financial institutions, will be compatible with the Digital Pound.

RTGS plays a key role in U.K.’s financial infrastructure handling over £685 billion worth of transactions every single day. RTGS is said to be the main channel for the central bank to inject liquidity in the country’s economy.

IT consulting giant Accenture has managed to grab this contract from BoE for a £150 million. In the official press release, Victoria Cleland, Executive Director for Banking, Payments and Innovation at the Bank of England said: “This is a key milestone in our ambitious and exciting Programme to renew RTGS.  I look forward to working with Accenture, and with the industry, to develop and deliver a system that is fit for the future, supporting continued innovation in UK and global payments”. 

Accenture said that the new RTGS Renewal Programme will help BoE to adapt to the changing financial ecosystem and give a wider access, functionality, and interoperability to more firms.

Sulabh Agarwal, a managing director at Accenture who leads its global payments practice, said, “The RTGS Renewal Programme will enable the Bank of England to enhance its critical infrastructure in one of the most important initiatives for the U.K. payments system. The rise of digital and instant payments in recent years has dramatically changed the way we pay, reflecting changes in the needs of households and companies. The renewed system will enable financial institutions to access a more modern and secure payments platform which is fit for the future.”

The Bank of England (BoE) has been actively debating the prospects of issuing the digital version of Sterling Pound. It is also a member of the central bank consortium involving Canada, Japan, and Europe to check the feasibility of launching a digital currency.

The Bank of England is willing to make the Digital Pound available to all household and businesses upon launch.