Five associations form industry alliance to guide the UK’s digital currency future

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Published: January 11, 2023

Five associations have come together to form a new alliance – the UK Forum for Digital Currencies (UK FDC) – which will celebrate innovation and collaboration across the payments industry

Members include the City of London Corporation, Digital Pound Foundation, The Payments Association, TheCityUK and UK Finance. The aim of the alliance is to develop better policies, practice and regulation around digital currencies.

Digital currencies have been gaining rapid momentum over the past few years and have the potential to change how society thinks about and uses money. While there are risks, the UK FDC recognises this growing interest and the adoption of new forms of digital money across the globe and how it will open many opportunities for the UK to remain competitive in fintech, while leading financial innovation with the right regulatory framework.

By combining the expertise and extended network of the five associations, the group will seek to enable a safe and secure environment for innovators to grow and attract international investment into the UK, while also helping to create a constructive bridge between the associations representing both incumbents and the emerging players in the sector. The group will aim to mitigate the actual risks and alleviate the perceived risks through education and the ability to advocate for appropriate policy and proportionate regulation.

Finally, taking the education element further, the new collaboration aims to align the associations’ education programmes and policy advocacy with the UK’s regulatory framework and understand the operational impacts, challenges, risks and potential solutions. This includes the development of common terminology which embraces existing definitions used in the sector into a single lexicon.

The group will also take the lead on facilitating discussion and engagement between the UK’s existing financial services industry and the crypto industry, to help to reduce barriers between them and increase mutual understanding of this complex area within financial services.

About the Foundation

Whilst most CBDC experiments have involved private sector technology providers, the overwhelming majority of these experiments, to date, have not involved participation from other private sector actors. The Digital Pound Foundation is unique in proposing a model whereby the public and private sectors can fully engage in the design, development and adoption of a digital Pound, thus contributing to its successful roll-out and helping drive forward the UK’s transition to a digital economy.

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