The Bank of England announced that it has created the Participation and Technology Forum to contribute to the ongoing work on the central bank digital currency (CBDC).
A task force was formed by the Bank of England and HM Treasury to coordinate the discovery of a potential CBDC in April 2021. It was announced that the participation and technology forum was established to guide and support the task force, which started its activities in April.
Among the members of the Participation and Technology Forum, there are prominent names of the crypto ecosystem such as Monzo, Starling, Checkout.com, ConsenSys, as well as Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, which are the leading names in the payment world.
The engagement forum will work to gather information on policy views and operational requirements regarding the CBDC, while the technology forum will work to help the bank understand the technological challenges of designing, implementing and operating a CBDC.
The Bank of England stated that although serious efforts and studies are continuing to establish a CBDC, they have not yet made a clear decision on whether a CBDC will be implemented.
It is among the incoming information that the Technology Forum will hold its first meeting at the end of September, the Participation Forum will hold its first meeting within the year, and the agenda and minutes of the meetings will be regularly published.