A tender was posted on the UK government website last week, seeking an indicative budget of £200,000 for the wallet, which will be provided for both Android and iOS.
In the tender, it said that while it does not plan to develop a user wallet itself, the tool will help it to develop payment scheme rules and user experience guidelines for private sector wallet providers.
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The wallet will also make a CBDC product “more tangible,” while helping the Bank learn about the “end-to-end user journey” and “sharpen functional requirements for both the Bank and the private sector”.
The project is set to begin in January and run for five months, with a possible one-month extension.
So far 17 companies have applied to develop the software, but none have been successful.
The closing date for applications on the project is 23 December 2022 and the deadline for ‘asking questions’ is 16 December.
The program is part of Project Rosalind, the Bank for International Settlements’ project into how application programming interfaces (APIs) can be used for CBDCs.
While the bank has not confirmed it will issue a CBDC, it has been examining the possibility for some time.
On the BoE’s website it said that it was “looking carefully at the case for digital currency for the UK” and were looking at “what it might mean” if they did deploy one, and how this would work in reality.
Deputy governor Jon Cunliffe stated last month that the Bank planned to issue a consultative report at the end of this year “setting out the next steps that we propose”.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt also said last week that the UK government would be bringing forward a consultation on the topic “in the coming weeks”.
Charles Adams, investor relations at Nickel Digital Asset Management, said on the matter: “The only constant in the increasingly fast-paced digital asset sector has been the continued adoption of blockchain technology by governments and institutions globally.
“Despite the UK having a long way to go to catch up with governments who already have an active CBDC (first of all China), the news from the Bank of England shows clear intention from Threadneedle Street to explore all the benefits this technology can bring to their monetary policy capabilities and the effects this has on the wider economy.”
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