Polygon Labs joins NOBO Finance and Dun & Bradstreet in phase 2 of the Bank of England’s Digital Pound Lab

Polygon Labs is participating in Phase 2 of the Bank of England’s Digital Pound Lab, a controlled environment designed to test ideas and new technologies related to a potential digital pound. The Lab operates without real customers, real money, or formal regulatory review, allowing participants to experiment freely.

Joining Polygon Labs in this phase are NOBO Finance and Dun & Bradstreet, forming a consortium focused on simulating cross-border settlement using a digital pound.

Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, said, “For digital money to actually move the world’s trade, its different forms have to work together: public and private, central bank money and stablecoins. This experiment tests exactly that. Interoperability is what gets value moving, and it’s what our Open Money Stack is built to enable.”

“Regulators and central banks are asking the right questions, and we’re glad to be participating in that conversation at the infrastructure level.”

Phase 2 explores cross-border settlement 

Phase 2 investigates whether a stablecoin and a digital pound can settle the same cross-border payment within a single flow, eliminating delays caused by waiting on either side. The consortium explores multiple workstreams within the Lab.

Polygon Labs will contribute by testing the stablecoin settlement leg and the underlying smart contract infrastructure. This is facilitated through the Open Money Stack’s orchestration layer, built on the Polygon network. The digital pound leg settles on the Bank of England’s simulated test rails.

Other consortium members focus on complementary workstreams. NOBO Finance leads the SME Bankable Profile use case, which creates portable credit identities for small businesses.

Dun & Bradstreet provides verified business identity and credit data to anchor each profile, while Polygon Chain supplies the on-chain infrastructure enabling the profile to accompany payments.

Addressing fragmentation in digital money

Current money movement occurs across disparate rails, bank money, stablecoins, tokenised deposits, and potentially central bank digital currency that lack seamless interoperability. This fragmentation raises challenges in moving value across different forms without friction.

A client may pay in stablecoins while a counterparty expects a digital pound, and balances may reside in tokenised deposits. Without the ability to settle these forms at par and on demand, liquidity becomes trapped, and settlement risk increases. Maintaining fungibility across forms is essential for system stability.

Polygon Labs developed the Open Money Stack to ensure settlement does not depend on proximity to a particular payment rail.

Controlled experimentation in the Bank of England’s Lab

The Lab provides a low-risk environment to test interoperability hypotheses without involving real customers or actual currency. Rather than debating theoretical frameworks, participants collaborate on practical payment experiments.

Polygon Labs’ involvement does not imply endorsement by the Bank of England of Polygon Labs or its products. The use cases tested do not indicate future Bank policy or the final design of a digital pound. Instead, they serve as a collaborative learning process with the Bank and other participants to determine viable solutions before real-world implementation.