The Bank of England (‘the Bank’) and HM Treasury are committed to our work on a digital pound being informed by dialogue with the public, business, and civil society.
To support this engagement, the Bank is publishing design notes, which set out the Bank’s emerging thinking on specific topics related to a digital pound. These notes explore matters we are considering during the design phase for a digital pound, on which we wish to give stakeholders visibility of our emerging thinking. Publishing design notes allows us to be transparent about our work on a digital pound, and to prompt discussion on specific topics with stakeholders at an early stage and in an exploratory manner.
As is the case with all our work during the design phase, no decision has yet been taken on whether to build a digital pound. Design notes do not represent final policy or design decisions, nor do they represent policy proposals upon which we are formally consulting. On completion of the design phase and taking account of evolutions in the wider payments landscape, the Bank and the Government will decide whether to proceed to build a digital pound. If the decision was taken to build a digital pound, it would only be introduced once Parliament had passed the relevant primary legislation.