Business

PwC partners Bank of England on Blockchain technology

A TEAM of leading technology specialists at PwC in Belfast is helping the Bank of England to develop electronic money.

PwC's emerging and digital technologies team has completed a major project to provide technical expertise and support the Bank's own specialists on Blockchain, the technology that powers the crypto-currency bitcoin.

The PwC Belfast Blockchain technology team worked alongside the Bank to design and carry out a proof of concept to investigate the capability of distributed ledger technology (DLT), which creates a single shared view of transactions, allowing every participant simultaneous access to a shared view of information.

The PwC announcement came the same day the Bank of Canada confirmed it was working with the country’s biggest banks to develop an electronic version of the Canadian dollar.

It is examining how to put a government-backed, or fiat, currency on Blockchain. Full adoption would mark a significant advance for the emerging technology.

The Bank of England’s proof of concept was built using PwC’s Belfast-based Blockchain technology team, to explore the potential opportunities and challenges of using DLT for payments settlement.

In January PwC recruited 15 leading technology specialists to exploit and commercialise Blockchain, and that number is expected to grow to more than 40 by the end of the year.

PwC’s decision to focus on Blockchain technology in its Northern Ireland headquarters represents a major step in the firm’s move towards developing and exploiting financial technology solutions that are becoming a catalyst for change and innovation in the financial services industry.

Nick Bouch, financial services data leader and partner at PwC, said: “This is a significant piece of work and PwC are excited to have been able to support the Bank of England in developing their first DLT proof of concept.

Rob Elsey, chief information officer for the Bank of England, said: “With PwC’s support, the Bank’s developers used the latest techniques and software to deliver this POC and have gained further skills that will enable additional rapid proof of concepts in the future.”