The Bank of England (BoE), the United Kingdom’s central bank, believes the country probably needs its own digital version of the pound sterling. According to the central bank, there is also some urgency, because the central bank digital currency (CBDC) project should be ready before the year 2030, according to the BoE, according to a reporting from the Daily Telegraph.
The digital pound
We can probably expect a track schedule for the digital pound as early as next week, government sources told the Daily Telegraph. On Tuesday, February 7, we will receive an update from Jon Cunliffe of the BoE on the progress of the project.
“Based on the current status of our work, the BoE believes that a digital pound is likely to be needed in the future,” BoE Governor Andrew Bailey and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt told the Daily Telegraph.
The BoE subsequently declined to comment on the paper’s article, but announced an information session on plans for the digital pound shortly. So we will certainly hear more about this project from the central bank of the United Kingdom soon.
Less and less cash
Incidentally, the use of cash in the United Kingdom is in a sharp decline, which we cannot completely separate from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the year 2020, the use of cash has fallen by 35 percent. This, of course, also has to do with the fact that people could be found a lot less on the street in that year than in previous years.
Regular debit and credit card payments accounted for about five-sixths of all payments in the UK. Notably, the news comes days after the UK Treasury posted on LinkedIn a vacancy for a leadership position for the UK’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).