Minutes of the CBDC Engagement Forum - May 2025

Minutes

Item 1: Welcome and competition law reminder 

The meeting opened with a welcome from the Bank. A reminder of competition law obligations was read. There were no objections to the minutes of the previous meeting held in February 2025. 

Item 2: Offline payments 

Danny Russell (Bank of England) presented findings from the Bank’s offline payments experiments report, which form part of the digital pound design phase. These experiments focused on peer-to-peer payments, but the Bank has looked at offline point-of-sale (POS) functionality in previous work. The aim was to assess the technical feasibility implementing an offline payment functionality for a digital pound. 

Discussion: 

• Members asked whether there is research on the proportion of the population that would benefit from offline payments. The Bank expects that further work will be needed in this area, particularly to understand inclusion implications. 
• Members highlighted the limitations of current POS systems, and the Bank confirmed its previous POS experiments showed these systems are not equipped to handle offline payments, which would likely require new software development. 
• Members discussed the relationship between offline POS and future open banking account-to-account (A2A) payments, with a focus on ensuring consistency with broader payment strategies. 
• It was noted that transit systems such as TfL already support offline payments, specifically offline authentication with deferred settlement, and that liability sharing is a key component of such systems. 

Item 3: Privacy Working Group 

Ruth Wandhöfer (Engagement Forum member) presented on privacy, summarising feedback from the consultation. Privacy was one of the most frequently raised issues among the 50,000 responses received. She outlined three models of data access: minimum data access, a GDPR-style model, and enhanced privacy protection. The presentation also covered the role of wallet providers, cybersecurity, data minimisation, and transparency. A dashboard-style approach to managing data permissions was suggested. 

Discussion: 

• Members noted that public understanding of privacy in the context of the digital pound may be inconsistent or incomplete. Ruth emphasised the need to educate the public on how data is currently used and how it would be used in a digital pound system. 
• There was discussion about whether enhanced standards of privacy could be a differentiator for a digital pound and whether smart data principles could be embedded from the outset. Members also raised the importance of distinguishing between innovation and socially useful innovation. 
• Considerations were raised about trust in government versus private sector actors. 

Item 4: Intermediary roles and scheme rulebook 

The Bank presented on the roles of intermediaries in the digital pound platform model. Payment Interface Providers (PIPs) would provide core services, while Enhanced Service Interface Providers (ESIPs) could offer value-added services. The presentation covered considerations around commercial viability, conduct of business and consumer protection implications, directory services, inclusion, and the potential scheme rulebook. Existing rulebooks such as those used by the ECB and CHAPS are potential analogues. 

Discussion: 

• Members asked whether PIPs would be agents of the Bank and who would bear liability in the event of a cyber incident. 
• There was interest in how performance metrics (e.g. fail rates and speed) would be defined and whether smart data principles would be integrated.  
• Members discussed who would pay for fraud and infrastructure upkeep, and how counterparty discoverability would work. These remain areas for further exploration. 
• Some members questioned whether ESIPs should be more tightly regulated, particularly in relation to consumer risk and access for low-income users.  
• Members asked whether the Bank would offer a general-purpose wallet. The Bank clarified that were a digital pound to be launched, it does not expect to offer a public wallet and emphasised the importance of avoiding user lock-in to specific wallet providers. 

Item 5: AOB

The Chairs thanked members for attending this meeting and said there would be another Engagement Forum meeting in July.

Attendees

Tom Mutton - Bank of England

Diana Carrasco Vime - Bank of England

Danny Russell – Bank of England

Clare Roberts – HM Treasury

Members

Adam Jackson, Director of Policy, Innovate Finance

Arunan Tharamarajah, Head of European Banking and Payments, Wise

Arvin Abraham, Partner, Goodwin Procter

Chris Owen, Policy Lead, British Retail Consortium

Etay Katz, Partner, Ashurst LLP

Harry Newman, Head of Market Initiatives EMEA, SWIFT

Mick McAteer, Founder and co-Director, The Financial Inclusion Centre

Muir Mathesion, CFO, Nationwide Building Society

Rhiannon Butterfield, Principal, Payments, Innovation and Resilience, UK Finance

Ruth Wandhofer, Member, PSR Panel

Simon Gaysford, Founder & Director, Frontier Economics

Apologies

Bryan Zheng, Executive Director, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (sent alternate)

David Grunwald, Group Director of Innovation & Partnerships, NatWest (sent alternate)

David McPhee, Chief Policy and Engagement Officer, PayUK (sent alternate)

Esme Hodson, Member & Chief Compliance Officer, SC Ventures

Ian Stuart, CEO, HSBC Europe

Jana Mackintosh, Managing Director Payments & Innovation, UK Finance (sent alternate)

Jorn Lambert, Chief Digital Officer, MasterCard

Martin McTague, National Policy Chair, Federation of Small Businesses (sent alternate)

Nabil Manji, Senior Vice President, Head of Crypto & Web3, Worldpay

Natasha de Teran, Member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel

Neha Narula, Director of the Digital Currency Initiative, MIT

Paul Bances, Head of Global Market Development of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Currencies, PayPal 

Simon Gleeson, Partner, Clifford Chance

Simon Yeoul, Co-Executive Director, Positive Money

William Chalmers, CFO, Lloyds Banking Group (sent alternate)