News Summary

• BOE-led Digital Pound Lab will test trade-finance interoperability, in which exporters receive stablecoins while importers settle in a potential digital pound.
• Central banks worldwide are exploring how to regulate private stablecoins, which are crypto tokens whose value is pegged to a fiat currency.
• The BOE has been experimenting with a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the distributed-ledger technology that forms the backbone of the blockchain since 2024.
• The group will also experiment with invoice factoring backed by electronic bills of lading.