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Minutes of the CBDC Technology Forum – January 2024
Minutes
Date of meeting: 30 January 2024
Item 1: Welcome
Tom Mutton (Chair) welcomed Members to the ninth meeting of the CBDC Technology Forum.
The Chair informed Members that a summary of responses to the Consultation Paper and a summary of responses to the Technology Working Paper were published on January 25, 2024.
The Chair noted that the agenda for the meeting would comprise presentations from two of the four subgroups that have been temporarily established to help explore the design options for the digital pound architecture. The Chair then invited members of Subgroups 1 and 4 to present the progress of their work to date.
Item 2: Subgroup 1 presentation
Members of Subgroup 1, tasked with exploring technology options to ensure privacy in a digital pound and the design of the alias service, presented on Subgroup 1’s approach and findings to date.
They stated that Subgroup 1’s goals were to define the data access requirements for payments and to assess different solutions against those requirements. They noted that Subgroup 1’s primary consideration was privacy, but there were other considerations that need to be adhered to, particularly as compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. They explained that those considerations could introduce challenges for achieving their requirements for privacy.
They also discussed Subgroup 1’s draft privacy model, which considered different types of data, including account data, personal data and transaction data. It also considered different roles, such as payer, payee, Payment Interface Providers (PIPs), the ledger operator and the alias service operator. They explained that complexities would arise if the ledger operator was also the alias service operator, and it would be important to explore how PIPs would communicate with each other, whether that is directly or through the ledger operator.
They explained that there were cryptographic techniques, such as zero-knowledge proofs, that could support privacy. However, work would be needed to determine the implications of those techniques for a digital pound system. They noted that there were other considerations that might impact their assessment of different technical solutions, including whether holding limits would be implemented.
Item 3: Subgroup 4 presentation
Members of Subgroup 4, tasked with exploring the requirements for providing a platform for innovation, presented their initial findings. They explained that they would propose nine experiments for the Bank of England (the Bank) to consider commissioning:
- The first experiment would take examples from smart contract platforms and implement them against the API-based platform model of the digital pound to determine technical and legal feasibility.
- The second experiment would involve the Bank creating a hub or sandbox that would enable technical stakeholders to develop innovative solutions and experiments using synthetic data.
- The third experiment would explore technologies that could protect the privacy of user balances.
- The fourth experiment would involve working with existing participants in the blockchain or distributed ledger technology space to explore potential use cases, such as a bridge component between the digital pound and Ethereum.
- The fifth experiment would explore seamless omnichannel refunds, which would allow consumers to request refunds directly from their wallet applications.
- The sixth experiment would explore how a digital pound could be implemented on a public chain.
- The seventh experiment would explore an innovation platform that would sit above the core digital pound system and support innovation across all forms of money.
- The eighth experiment would explore a common platform that would sit above the core digital pound system and support interoperability across all forms of money.
- The ninth experiment would use electronic signatures to enable authorisation for tap-and-go transit payments.
Item 4: Closing remarks
The Chair closed the meeting and thanked Members for contributions.
Attendees
Bank of England
Tom Mutton (Chair)
Danny Russell
Will Lovell
Members
Adrian Field, OneID
Alain Martin, Thales
Andrew Flatt, Archax
Ashley Lannquist, IMF
David MacKeith, AWS
Dominic Black, Ledgerz
Edwin Aoki, Paypal
Gary King, Lloyds
Georgios Samakovitis, University of Greenwich
Inga Mullins, Fluency
Joshua Jeeson Daniel, JP Morgan
Julia Demidova, FIS
Keith Bear, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance
Kene Ezeji-Okoye, Millicent Labs
Lars Hupel, Giesecke+Devrient
Lauren Del Giudice, Idemia
Lee Braine, Barclays
Mark Shaw, Spotify
Michael Adams, Quali-Sign
Paul Carey, Stripe
Richard Brown, R3
Sarah Meiklejohn, IC3
Simon Brayshaw, Motorway
Vikram Kimyani, Oracle
Will Drewry, Google
Observers
HM Treasury
Apologies
Alan Ainsworth, Open Banking
Bejoy Das Gupta, eCurrency
Geoff Goodell, UCL
James Whittle, Pay.UK
Paul Lucas, IBM
Tim Moncrieff, Visa
Tom Beresford, Starling
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