On 23 October 2025, the Bank of England (BoE) provided an update on its recent work on the digital pound.
No decision has been made on whether to introduce a digital pound.
The BoE’s current ‘design phase’ of the digital pound workplan runs through 2026. Over the past year, the BoE has been focussing on developing the blueprint – a detailed design for any potential digital pound – were one to be launched. The blueprint is expected to be published next year, supported by design notes that set out the BoE’s emerging thinking on key issues and practical experimentation; particularly through the Digital Pound Lab which was launched in August.
The Digital Pound Lab is an experimental platform for industry to test use cases and explore potential business models for a digital pound and foster broader innovation in digital retail money. Phase 2 is now open. In phase 2 industry participants may test innovative payments use cases, using a digital pound as the foundation, with potentially broader applicability across retail payments.
The update also discusses a series of design notes that set out the BoE’s emerging policy and technical thinking. These include the:
- Interoperability models for UK based payments design note.
- Product strategy design note.
- Intermediary roles and scheme rulebook design note.
- Offline payments design note.
- Alias service design note.