The Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have completed a joint project on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

The project – dubbed ‘Rosalind’– explored how a universal application programming interface (API) could connect central bank and private sector infrastructures and how an API could facilitate retail CBDC payments.

The project looked at around 30 possible use cases and provided insights on API design, privacy models and security.

A range of payment options were tested, including online retail CBDC payments, QR codes and biometric devices. Some of the experiments also looked at private sector programmability and micropayments.

Commenting on the news Francesca Hopwood Road, head of the BIS Innovation Hub London centre, said: “Active collaboration with the public and private sectors to identify and explore these use cases has been at the heart of this. We believe that Rosalind can make a significant contribution to how organisations across the globe are thinking about and engaging with the design of retail CBDC systems.”

Last month, an experiment by the New York Federal Reserve and Singapore’s central bank found that CBDCs could improve cross-border payments, with research suggesting that the value of payments made through CBDCs will reach $213 billion annually by 2030, up from $100 million in 2023.

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