The UK Digital Pound Consultation and Policy Framework is the joint Bank of England and HM Treasury programme for assessing a potential retail central bank digital currency. As of 22 June 2026, it remains a proposed policy framework in the design phase: no decision has been made to issue a digital pound, it is not legislation, and it has no effective date. The original public consultation ran from 7 February to 30 June 2023, and the authorities published their consultation response on 25 January 2024.
What the digital pound proposal covers
The official consultation, The digital pound: a new form of money for households and businesses?, describes the digital pound as sterling central bank money issued by the Bank of England for everyday payments by households and businesses. It would complement cash and commercial bank deposits rather than replace them, remain exchangeable at par with those forms of money, and represent a direct claim on the Bank rather than on a private issuer. The consulted model is non-interest-bearing and intended for payments rather than savings.
The authorities propose a public-private platform. The Bank would operate the core ledger and infrastructure, while regulated payment interface providers and external service interface providers would connect through application programming interfaces, supply wallets and other user-facing services, and handle customer information. The developing blueprint is organised around product strategy, scheme and regulation, technology, and operations. Published design notes are exploratory, not final policy decisions or a formal consultation.
Privacy, control and access to cash
The consultation received more than 50,000 responses. Many respondents raised concerns about privacy, government control of spending and continued access to cash. The January 2024 response therefore made several commitments that would govern any later build and launch:
- Neither the Bank nor the Government would access users’ personal data through the core infrastructure, and proposed primary legislation would guarantee privacy.
- Neither authority would program the public’s money or control where it could be spent. Intermediaries could support user-authorised programmable payments, subject to a future regulatory framework.
- A digital pound would sit alongside cash. The authorities have committed to preserving cash access for people who wish to use it.
The March 2026 progress update says the architecture is being developed so that authority-initiated programmable money would be prohibited in law and technically impossible, while structural and technical safeguards would prevent the core infrastructure from exposing personal data to the Bank or Government. Private providers would still need to perform relevant identity, anti-financial-crime and customer-service functions under the future scheme and regulatory framework.
Holding limits and financial-stability controls
The consultation response retained, as a working proposition, an introductory individual holding limit in the range of £10,000 to £20,000. The purpose is to balance usability against risks from rapid movements out of commercial-bank deposits. The range is not final: the Bank and HM Treasury said further analysis could lead them to revisit it, and another public consultation would seek views before legislation. Corporate access and limits remain subject to separate design work.
Current status and next decision
The design phase has four connected workstreams: a joint assessment, a consolidated blueprint, experiments and proofs of concept, and stakeholder engagement. The Digital Pound Lab supports that work in a simulated environment; it is not a regulatory sandbox and involves no real customers or real money. Its work tests potential payment uses and intermediary business models rather than operating a live CBDC.
The Bank’s March 2026 update states that the design phase ends in 2026 and that the Bank and HM Treasury intend to publish the blueprint, assessment and decision on next steps later in the year. A decision to proceed would not itself launch the currency. A further public consultation would precede primary legislation, and Parliament would have to pass that legislation before any digital pound could be introduced. No launch date has been set, so the framework is best classified as Proposed, not in force.