The UK's biggest banks have completed the experimentation phase of a Regulated Liability Network, claiming a number of benefits that the financial market infrastructure for programmable money operating on a multi-bank shared ledger could bring.
The UK RLN is envisaged as a common ‘platform for innovation’ across multiple forms of money, including existing commercial bank deposits and a shared ledger for tokenised commercial bank deposits.
Barclays, Citi, HSBC, Lloyds, Mastercard, NatWest, Nationwide, Santander, Standard Chartered, Virgin Money and Visa all took part in the experimentation phase over the summer.
Across the use cases explored, a number of potential benefits were discovered, including reducing fraud, improving efficiency in the process of home buying and reducing the cost of failed payments in the UK.
In addition, UK Finance says that such a platform, in collaboration with things such as Open Banking, could deliver economic value and support innovation in the market. The RLN could also provide new firms with a common point of access to enable them to interface with established institutions, and enhanced payment and settlement systems.
The participants also conclude that the legal and regulatory framework of the UK is sufficiently flexible to support the implementation of a ‘platform for innovation’.
Peter Left, head, digital and markets innovation, Lloyds, and co-chair of the RLN Project, says: "Working in partnership, we have demonstrated how this platform supports developments in money and payments aligned to common public and private sector objectives, while also providing clear and long-term customer and industry benefits."