A new independent forum called Digital Pound Foundation has been started in the UK to promote, research, and push for the implementation of the CBDC in the UK.
It is chaired by Jeremy Wilson, who is one of the veterans from Barclays Bank and the push for the digital pound is to make sure of a reliable, transparent, and inclusive digital economy that will ensure that the UK will continue to stay ahead of the CBDC technology and is not left by other countries that are pursuing the same. It is estimated that around 20 countries are currently working on their version of CBDCs and they are expected to release within the next 3 years. This is likely to present a unique problem to the global economy where a part of the fund flow would be in CBDCs while the other part of the fund flow would be in fiat systems and reconciliation and accounting is likely to become difficult. Also, those countries that do not have digital currencies are likely to suffer in the long term due to their outdated technology.
Wilson said: “Technology is transforming human interaction and money must adapt to that. The world has become a global laboratory realizing the benefits of a new form of money. The social ramifications of this shift will affect everyone. The Digital Pound Foundation seeks to support the UK in bringing that about for the benefit of all.”
Ripple, Accenture, CGI Group, and others are backing the Foundation and it has to be noted that Accenture is backing another foundation in the US that is pushing for the creation of a digital dollar. It has to also be mentioned that as far as the UK is concerned, the creation of a digital pound is already underway from the Bank of England as we have had reports that said that the bank was working with forums and studying and pushing reports as well as research papers on the topic making it very clear that it is interested in introducing the digital pound in the years to come through officially, it continues to remain mum. It would be interesting to see what such Foundation’s advocate as far as the co-existence and inter-operability of privately-issued cryptos or stablecoins and CBDCs would be as this would be key to the digital future of the financial ecosystem.
