Andrew Bailey, the new governor of the Bank of England, has clarified that the central bank is still looking into the possibility of creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Bailey has also called for establishing high regulatory standards for stablecoins.
Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was a strong supporter of the CBDC project as the finance minister who launched a top-level task force focused on the digital pound initiative.
As of October 2023, the digital pound initiative received more than 50,000 responses. Privacy issues were among the main concerns voiced by the responders.
In late 2023, UK lawmakers called for lowering the holding limits for a digital pound.
Last month, it was reported that the BoE was in the process of setting up a “Digital Pound Lab” as a sandbox for experimenting with potential use cases within a simulated environment.
As of now, the digital pound remains in a “design phase,” and the current government is seemingly reluctant to move forward with its launch.
Last January, the Bank of England claimed that the final decision on whether or not the central bank should issue a digital currency was still years away.
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