We are pleased to announce that Manchester University’s Centre of Financial Technology (FinTech) Studies has joined the Digital Pound Foundation (DPF) as a strategic partner. The Centre of FinTech Studies is a Knowledge and Research hub set up by the Alliance Manchester Business School in 2022 to explore digital advancements in finance. It collaborates with industry partners to provide theoretical insights and practical solutions to help businesses respond to the latest challenges they face.
The Centre acts as a knowledge-sharing platform, bringing together FinTech firms and financial services institutions from across Manchester and the UK. It also hosts conferences, seminars and hackathons which set problem-solving challenges for some of the industry’s brightest minds.
The Centre and the DPF will collaborate on areas of mutual interest with a particular focus on exploring attitudes to use cases related to CBDCs and other new forms of digital money. The Centre will participate in the DPF’s Use Case Working Group, bringing cutting edge research and expertise to help inform the development of Use Cases. The Working Group will likewise provide industry expertise to help develop research instruments used by The Centre to further their research and support them to initiate subsequent discussions to substantiate their findings. The partners will also collaborate on roundtables and policy outreach on CBDC use cases.
Commenting on the partnership, Professor Markos Zachariadis, Director of The Centre of Financial Technology Studies said: “Questions around the consumer and business attitudes for the adoption and use of CBDCs are of the utmost importance for any government and central bank that plans to issue digital cash. Our aim as a research institution is to inform policy with evidence, so it’s our pleasure and privilege to partner with DPF in order to investigate further the potential for the Digital Pound in the UK but also the introduction of CBDCs internationally. We hope that matching DPF’s industry expertise and network with decades of combined academic research on payments and digital finance at the University of Manchester will contribute to the ongoing CBDC discussions and debate.”
Claire Conby, Executive Director and Operations and Innovation Lead, Digital Pound Foundation added: “As the DPF Use Case Working Group continues to explore compelling use cases for a retail CBDC, we are thrilled to leverage the academic and industry expertise brought together by The Centre of Fintech Studies. This collaboration enables the DPF to access market insights and feedback which will then feed into our thought leadership and future proof of concept aspirations”
Interested in becoming a member of the Digital Pound Foundation?
If you would like to learn more about DPF membership, and its many benefits and opportunities, please head over to our membership page, or reach out to Michelle Brook, Membership Community Manager, directly via email: membership@digitalpoundfoundation.com.
For more information about The Centre for FinTech Studies, please visit: https://www.alliancembs.manchester.ac.uk/research/fintech/ or email: markos.zachariadis@manchester.ac.uk
