An experimental platform to test the future of public money in the digital age has moved into phase 2 – with an Edinburgh Napier University-hosted entry among the chosen projects involved.
The Scottish Digital Trust Centre – which is based at ENU – has been accepted onto Phase 2 of the Bank of England Digital Pound Lab.
The Lab is an experimental platform that provides a simulated environment to test the potential capabilities of a digital pound of the future, helping explore the feasibility of different use cases.
Over the coming months, the Centre team will build a use case that explores how a digital pound could support trade finance – specifically payments for small and medium enterprises in a business-to-business procurement context.
Being selected to participate is hailed as a significant moment for the Centre, drawing on its leading research and applied work in digital trust, cryptography and distributed systems to collaborate directly with the Bank of England.
Late payments and the cost of trade credit remain a structural drag on UK businesses, so this test will examine how a digital pound platform could ease some of these pressures while exploring how reliability and security could be maintained.
Professor Bill Buchanan OBE FRSE (pictured) of ENU’s School of Computing, Engineering & the Built Environment and Director of the Digital Trust Centre of Excellence, said: "This is exactly the kind of problem digital public money should be tested against.
“We've spent years building the cryptographic primitives that make conditional, privacy-aware settlement possible – and now we get to put them to work exploring what could underpin the next generation of UK payments.
“It's a genuinely exciting moment for Scotland's digital trust ecosystem."
The Digital Trust Centre brings together leading applied research at Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Glasgow, with deep capability in applied cryptography, distributed ledger systems, privacy-preserving technology and quantum-ready cryptography.
Earlier work from the consortium – including a demonstration of a proof of concept to allow central bank money settlement on a public network addressing issues around finality, performance and resilience – was presented to the Bank of England at their DLT Innovation Challenge showcase event in October 2025.
The Lab work will be delivered from the Centre’s sandbox environment at Edinburgh Napier University, and will run as part of its wider 2026 innovation programme.
Businesses, financial institutions and partners interested in the Centre's wider innovation programme can get in touch through the Centre, with more about its work available on its website.