Bank of England digital pound lab just started testing stablecoin & CBDC interoperability with real infrastructure

Bank of England digital pound lab entered phase two. Polygon labs, nobo finance and dun & bradstreet joined to test cross border SME trade finance, one workstream on reusable credit profiles via polygon smart contracts, another on invoice factoring where exporters get paid in stablecoins and importers settle in digital pounds

It's still sandboxed with no real money moving, and BOE hasn't decided if the digital pound launches at all (decision comes after 2026, needs parliament to pass legislation)

The real story here is BOE designing for stablecoins and CBDC to interoperate, not compete

Sauce: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/the-digital-pound/lab/digital-pound-lab-phase-2-update