BoE Tests Stablecoins Beside a Digital Pound
The UK is actively advancing a digital pound, with the Bank of England driving stablecoin and CBDC innovation through mandates and live sandbox testing.
The Bank of England moved its digital pound work into Phase 2 on Wednesday, testing whether public stablecoins and central-bank money can operate in a single trade-finance flow — an exporter advanced via stablecoin, a UK importer settling in digital pounds — with NOBO Finance, Dun & Bradstreet and Polygon Labs. A parallel workstream builds a reusable small-business credit profile from wallet, open-banking and credit-bureau data. The lab uses no real customers or money and signals no issuance decision.
Digital Pound Lab: watch what problem they're solving
Bank of England is testing a reusable credit profile for small businesses.
The stablecoins just move the money.
The pitch is genuinely good for small exporters — get paid faster, prove you're creditworthy, unlock working capital. And it's a sandbox for now: no real money, no real customers, no decision to issue a digital pound.
The intent is clear — a portable identity that follows your business around, recording every verified transaction on a shared ledger.
Crypto promised money that moves autonomously. The Bank's version was always going to be the antithesis of that.
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- Bank of England to test stablecoin, digital currency use in cross-border finance · coindesk.com · T1