U.K. Finance and its 11 members have completed an experimental phase of a tokenization and central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform, finding that it could increase economic value and functionality, CoinDesk reported.
The project, which involved 11 member banks and professional services firms including Barclays, Citi UK, HSBC and Natwest, concluded that the platform helps deliver economic value and enables new capabilities such as programmable payments.
U.K. Finance said the regulated liability network is a financial market infrastructure that provides new capabilities in payments and settlements, including tokenization and programmability.
More and more platforms and institutions are exploring tokenization to put real-world assets, including stocks, on blockchains. Last year, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expressed support for a report by industry leaders on the implementation of fund tokenization.
Peter Left, co-chair of the RLN project, said the platform supports the development of money and payments in line with shared goals of the public and private sectors while providing clear and long-term benefits to customers and the industry.
At its core, the platform is a multi-issuer tokenization platform that facilitates the issuance of tokenized commercial bank deposits and simulates wholesale CBDC. It also includes an application programming interface (API) layer that enables interoperability with all forms of currency and existing ledgers.
The organization said that the UK's legal and regulatory framework is flexible enough to support the implementation of the "Innovation Platform", which requires further implementation and regulatory engagement.
