Bank of England Seeking Developers for CBDC Wallet Proof-of-Concept

The Bank of England (BOE) is looking to develop a proof-of-concept for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) wallet. The BOE posted a request for applications on the UK government's Digital Marketplace on December 9, with a budget of $244,500 and a duration of five months.

The wallet will need to have basic functionality such as a signup process, updating details, and displaying balances and transactions. It will also need to be able to load and unload CBDCs, request peer-to-peer payments through an account ID or QR code, and be used to pay online with businesses. The project's key deliverables are a mobile app for iOS and Android, a website for the wallet, an example merchant website, and back-end infrastructure to serve the wallet website and apps.

The BOE has said it will not develop a user wallet itself and no work has been done on a CBDC sample wallet. The aim of the project is to explore the end-to-end user journey and to help the BOE sharpen functional requirements for itself and the private sector. It is also intended to make the CBDC product "more tangible" for internal and external stakeholders.

The project is part of Project Rosalind, a joint experiment with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub. The wallet will be tested with the Rosalind API. The BOE plans to evaluate five suppliers, and has previously stated that it aims to launch a CBDC by at least 2030.