Central Bank of England soliciting public opinions for retail trials of central bank digital currencies
Bank of England Begins Trials of Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency
The Bank of England (BoE) is embarking on a series of trials for wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) solutions in 2025, focusing on integration via the upgraded RT2 payment platform. This move aims to enhance interoperability and support various wholesale financial use cases.
The transition to the RT2 platform, completed in April 2025, provides a modern core ledger and settlement engine based on ISO 20022 messaging. This upgrade underpins faster, more flexible central bank money settlement, offering a strong foundation for innovation. The RT2 architecture could potentially integrate wCBDC with existing payment systems like CHAPS and other market infrastructures.
The BoE is exploring synchronization solutions that would allow a wCBDC to operate alongside and interact with commercial bank money and existing settlement systems. This could enable use cases such as cross-border payments and real-time settlement. Potential wCBDC use cases under consideration include improving efficiency and safety in wholesale financial transactions, enhancing interoperability among banks, and supporting innovation in fintech and payment services by leveraging the RT2 infrastructure.
While the BoE has shown some caution regarding retail CBDC issuance, the exploration of wCBDC continues with a clear experimental and strategic approach. As of mid-2025, no official timeline for full-scale wCBDC issuance has been announced, but ongoing trials and development are actively being pursued.
The trials will include interoperability with global initiatives such as BIS Project Agora for cross-border payments. The tests will also cover delivery versus payment (DvP) and settlement of primary bond issuance transactions, as well as secondary market transactions. Payment versus payment (PvP) use cases will also be tested.
One of the concerns behind this move is the potential future use of stablecoins in the wholesale market. To address this, the BoE is seeking views on the sort of wholesale infrastructure needed to support tokenized deposits. The wCBDC and synchronization solution will enable DLT transactions to settle using the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system.
The Bank of England has published a discussion paper on innovation in money and payments, asking for feedback for planned wholesale central bank money trials. The paper also plans to run side-by-side tests for the wCBDC and synchronization solution, focusing on comparisons between risks and complexity.
The trials are part of the BoE's ongoing efforts to adapt to the rapidly changing financial landscape. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey acknowledges the need for policymakers to accept that their assessments may become outdated due to the rapid pace of change and innovation.
Notably, the BoE has run Project Meridian, which enabled a digital real estate transaction to settle via connectivity with the RTGS. Project Meridian FX is currently being run with the European Central Bank. The UK is also testing tokenized deposits through the Regulated Liability Network initiative.
In summary, the BoE's trials of wCBDC solutions position the institution as a leader in the innovation enabler within the core UK payment ecosystem. This cautious but forward-looking approach reflects the evolving central bank digital currency landscape.
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