The bank stipulates that the wallet must be capable of performing fundamental functions such as exchanging currency and requesting payments, and has fixed its price at close to $255,000. The Bank of England (BOE) is interested in receiving a “proof of concept” for a wallet that will have the capacity to store a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The Board of Exchange (BOE) published a call for proposals on the Digital Marketplace of the United Kingdom government on December 9. The Digital Marketplace is a website where government entities may seek employment for digital initiatives.
In addition, the wallet has to demonstrate that it can be loaded and unloaded using a CBDC, that it can request peer-to-peer payments using an account ID or QR code, and that it can be used to pay online with companies. All of these capabilities need to be present.
A mobile app for iOS and Android, a website for the wallet, an example merchant website, and the back-end infrastructure to service the wallet website and applications while also keeping user data and transaction history are key deliverables for the project. The project will also generate these deliverables.
The bank stated that there had been “no work done” on a CBDC sample wallet, and that it “will not construct a user wallet itself.”
For the proof-of-concept project, which is projected to last for a total of five months and have a cost of 244,500 dollars (or 200,000 British pounds), the BOE has decided to analyze five different vendors.
At the time this was written, there had been no applications submitted.
The BOE has announced in the past that it intends to work toward establishing a CBDC by at least 2030.
The BOE’s work as part of Project Rosalind, a collaborative experiment it is carrying out with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, is supported by the sample wallet. Project Rosalind’s goal is to create prototypes of an application programming interface (API) for a CBDC.
The Rosalind application programming interface will also be tested for implementation alongside the proof-of-concept wallet.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, presented a series of reforms to Britain’s financial services industry on the 9th of December. One of these measures includes conducting a consultation on ideas for the formation of a CBDC.
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