UK Finance is taking its pilot of the UK Regulated Liability Network (RLN) to a new experimentation phase. The industry body announced that major banks like Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, and Citigroup, alongside card networks Mastercard and Visa, are participating in this stage.
The RLN is designed to be a “practical commercial platform”, accessible to all banks, capable of handling different types of money such as conventional bank deposits and tokenised bank deposits and securities. By expanding the range of assets recorded as tokens on a unified blockchain, UK Finance aims to streamline cross-border transactions, improve efficiency, and reduce the risks of error and fraud.
The experimentation phase will concentrate on key use cases including payment-upon-delivery to combat fraud in online marketplaces, increasing transparency and reducing fraud in property transactions, and exploring digital bond settlement mechanisms. It is set to run until summer 2024.
During this phase, UK Finance will explore foundational capabilities, assess technical feasibility through a technology sandbox, and analyse the legal framework governing shared ledger settlement systems. The results of the experimentation phase will be disclosed after the summer.