The Bank of England’s “CBDC Sample Wallet Proof of Concept” project has recently completed its tender applications. According to the UK government’s Digital Marketplace website, 28 applications were received for the project, with 20 companies completing the application process, including 9 SMEs and 11 large companies. The Bank of England said that the contract will be awarded to the selected applicants on January 31 2023. In addition, the Bank of England responded to 73 questions about the project.
On December 11th, 2022, the press reported that the Bank of England had officially released a tender application for the “CBDC Sample Wallet Proof of Concept” project in the UK Government Digital Marketplace. The news became an industry hotspot, and the subsequent development is bound to become the focus of industry attention. It is reported that the project budget range is £200,000 and the cycle time is 5 months. The application outlines simple guidelines that must be implemented for the proof-of-concept wallet, which appears to need to provide only basic functionality, such as a registration process, a way to update details, display balances and transactions, and display notifications. Among other requirements, the proof-of-concept submission must also demonstrate that it can use CBDC to charge and withdraw funds from commercial banks and be able to request peer-to-peer payments via an account ID or QR code that can be used to make payments with businesses online payments. The key deliverables of the project were the creation of a mobile application for iOS and Android, a wallet website and a sample merchant website and back-end infrastructure to serve the wallet website and application, as well as store user data and transaction history.
The release of the Bank of England’s “CBDC Sample Wallet Proof of Concept” project tender application validates another concern of industry experts – the technical issues that need to be addressed for a global central bank to issue CBDC. Li Lihui, Former Governor of the Bank of China and Head of the Blockchain Research Working Group of the Internet Finance Association of China, said in a live broadcast that the issuance of CBDCs will require countries to face high concurrent demand for legal digital currency mega-market retail levels. And at present, the support technology behind the legal digital currency can not meet the high concurrency demand. So, the Bank of England issued this project tender application, seeking the help of global technology companies.
As a global pioneer in e-money and cashless payments, ACU Group is committed to being one of the major players and contributors in this field throughACU PAY, public chain AET and many other high-quality projects covering the upstream and downstream of the digital finance industry. Currently, ACU Group is applying its own digital finance technology to the finance-related ecosystem, including payments, exchange, digital banking and other quality digital finance projects incubation.
In supporting CBDCs for central banks around the world, ACU Group offers a full suite of solutions including research, development, and promotion. ACU Group creates CBDCs and a range of products that support CBDCs to enable payments tailored to the requirements of central banks, and takes additional steps to provide financial access and connect different markets, create compliance solutions, provide liquidity, offer web services and process remittances ACU Group can work with central banks and regulators to provide different solutions based on the needs of partner countries to ensure a common infrastructure that both meets business needs and protects consumers. ACU Group’s self-developed digital financial system supports asset issuance and ensures the security and stability of the system. ACU Group will work with issuers based on their specific requirements and in accordance with local Appropriate KYC (Know Your Customer) and CDD (Customer Due Diligence) processes are set up according to laws and regulations to safeguard assets and accounts. Master node technology has been added to the ACU system with additional veto power to reject or discard certain blocks that are outdated or have been maliciously manipulated. The unique ability of master nodes to shape the way the network operates with their voting power also helps to operate as a check and balance mechanism, bringing impartiality and objectivity to the entire network system. The system provides a cheaper and faster transaction channel for customers.
In addition to issuing CBDC, ACU PAY, the electronic payment program of ACU Group, will also provide global central banks with global payment functions. ACU PAY, developed by ACU Group, is one of the world’s leading integrated electronic money wallets for payment and wealth management. ACU PAY supports multiple electronic currencies, uses QR codes for payment and receipt, uses multi-layer algorithms for encryption, records transaction information, and ensures data security. More importantly, ACU PAY is connected to the ACU*HSG dual-currency banking system, which enables the conversion of legal tender and electronic currency. ACU*HSG dual-currency banking system can support both traditional banking and emerging electronic currency conversion system architecture, providing users with smarter and more effective cross-platform user services and tapping into the unlimited possibilities of the new generation banking system.
The issuance of CBDC is gradually becoming the new “consensus” of global central banks, and as expected by industry experts, more cooperation will be reached between global central banks and FinTech companies, which will provide the necessary services for global central banks to realize CBDC and promote it as a major form of currency, leaving a colorful mark in the history of human money:history.
