Barclays, HSBC, and Citi, alongside several other prominent financial institutions in the United Kingdom, have joined forces to embark on an innovative collaboration aiming to revolutionize banking practices through the pilot of tokenized deposits.
This initiative, spearheaded by a consortium of British banks including Barclays and Citigroup, is geared towards optimizing the tracking of banking payments.
According to a recent press release from UK Finance on April 15th, the consortium is initiating the “UK Regulated Liability Network” experimentation phase.
This phase involves leveraging a “shared ledger” mechanism to streamline the complexities of cross-border transactions.
Lee Braine, the Chief Technology Officer at Barclays, expressed optimism about the potential of these experiments to enhance customer experiences and mitigate market fragmentation in retail payment ecosystems.
Gilbert Verdian, CEO of Quant, provided insights to Bloomberg, suggesting that participating firms are expected to engage with the trial platform for a duration of two to three years before contemplating commercial implementation.
Apart from banks and Quant, key payment systems such as Mastercard, NatWest, Nationwide, and others are actively engaged in this pioneering pilot program.
Scheduled to run until the summer of 2024, the experimentation phase will meticulously evaluate various aspects, including customer and business benefits, technical feasibility, and legal frameworks surrounding shared ledger settlement systems.
Although details regarding the specific blockchain network for the “shared ledger” remain undisclosed, there is a broader trend of entities exploring the integration of tokenization services with existing products.
Notably, in early April, GF Securities, an investment banking firm based in Hong Kong, made waves by launching a local tokenized commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain.
