Bank of England Selects Consortium to Test Stablecoin and Digital Pound Interoperability

The Bank of England has selected NOBO Finance, Dun & Bradstreet, and Polygon Labs to participate in the second phase of its Digital Pound Lab. This experimental platform allows financial and technology companies to develop potential products and payment use cases for a future digital pound.

NOBO previously completed Phase 1 by demonstrating conditional B2B escrow payments designed for trade finance use cases. In Phase 2, the consortium will explore how stablecoins and a potential digital pound could interoperate to improve cross-border trade finance.

The project aims to tackle the financing gap created by slow settlement and limited credit access for cross-border SMEs. Manual verification and fragmented financial data can make it difficult for smaller businesses to prove their creditworthiness, while waiting for international payments can tie up vital working capital.