Based on its proof-of-concept (POC), the Bank of England (BoE) has confirmed that its renewed Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service would be capable of supporting settlement in systems operating on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

Last year, the central bank set out the blueprint for a renewed RTGS service in the wake of the rapidly changing payment landscape. It had said at the time that it decided against building the renewed RTGS service on DLT as it found the technology is not “sufficiently mature”, but added that it places “high priority” on ensuring that the new service is capable of interfacing with DLT.

In March 2018, it announced that it was running the POC with Baton Systems, Clearmatics Technologies, R3, and Token.

On Monday, the BoE published a summary of the outcomes of the POC. The report states:

“All participants confirmed that the functionality offered by the renewed RTGS service would enable their systems to connect and to achieve settlement in central bank money.”

In addition, the POC revealed certain limitations and the central bank received a number of recommendations on ensuring optimal access to central bank money. To that end, the BoE said that it will:

• “Consider how different account structures could be used in the renewed RTGS service;
• Investigate whether the renewed RTGS service could provide and consume acceptable forms of cryptographic proofs; and
• Continue to engage with Fintech firms to keep up to date with innovation in payment technology.”