BoE Tests Stablecoin-Digital Pound Trade Finance with Polygon-Led Consortium

The Bank of England has enlisted a Polygon-led consortium — including NOBO Finance and Dun & Bradstreet — for Phase 2 of its Digital Pound Lab, advancing experiments that blend stablecoin payments, a potential digital pound and reusable SME identity to speed up cross-border trade finance. According to a press release shared with crypto.news, the consortium will run two linked workstreams inside the central bank’s sandbox-style programme. Polygon Labs will supply its Open Money Stack infrastructure for stablecoin settlement, wallets and smart contracts, while NOBO brings trade finance workflow expertise and Dun & Bradstreet provides commercial data and risk signals. What the tests will do - The programme uses simulated funds and customers — a controlled environment that lets participants explore how different forms of digital money and business data could interact without live market risk. - Phase 1 saw NOBO demonstrate conditional B2B escrow payments for trade finance. Phase 2 builds on that work by adding commercial intelligence and blockchain settlement to flesh out identity and settlement components for cross-border SME trade. - The trials focus on pain points for smaller exporters and importers, where fragmented verification and multi-day settlement windows tie up working capital and slow access to financing. Two linked experiments 1) SME Bankable Profile: This workstream will create a reusable, verifiable SME profile that combines transaction data from consented wallets, open finance inputs and Dun & Bradstreet’s Commercial Graph to generate a pre-qualified credit outcome. NOBO will lead development with Dun & Bradstreet supplying business intelligence and risk indicators, and Polygon providing smart contracts for consent management, verification and financing lifecycle flows. The consortium says profiles are designed to remain under the SME’s control and to “travel” with the business when it seeks finance from different providers. Sara de la Torre, head of financial services at Dun & Bradstreet, said the experiment aims to make SMEs easier to verify and build trust that speeds trade finance. 2) Invoice factoring backed by eBL: The second stream tests an invoice-factoring flow secured by an electronic bill of lading (eBL) that uses two digital-money rails in the same transaction. In the proposed model an exporter receives an advance in a private stablecoin while a UK importer completes final settlement in digital pounds. Polygon will power the stablecoin leg through Open Money Stack to see whether private stablecoins and a CBDC-style digital pound can interoperate within a single trade finance transaction rather than forcing one money type to handle every stage. “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,” Polygon CEO Marc Boiron said. Polygon’s role and broader tech context Polygon positions its Open Money Stack as a one-stop integration layer that handles fiat conversion, wallets, stablecoin settlement and smart contracts — easing movement between fiat and tokenized money without building bespoke rails. The company highlighted that PayPal USD became natively available on Open Money Stack in July, and that its network has settled more than $2.6 trillion in stablecoin transactions for clients including Revolut and Stripe. In 2026 Polygon made several upgrades to support institutional payment use cases: an average block time cut to 1.75 seconds (theoretical throughput ~3,260 tps), and private stablecoin transfers using zero-knowledge proofs in partnership with Hinkal to enable shielded transfers while preserving KYT and auditability. Roles and limitations - Polygon is providing infrastructure only; it is not issuing any central bank money in the experiment. Its stack supports the stablecoin leg, embedded wallets, fiat-stablecoin conversion and smart contracts for the identity workstream. - NOBO continues to coordinate the trade finance model and technology but does not provide lending itself — it supplies the workflow and verification rails that let financiers and SMEs structure and settle deals. Why it matters Cross-border trade finance is notoriously multi-party and data-fragmented. For SMEs, slow verification and settlement consume working capital and limit access to finance. If the consortium’s tests succeed, reusable digital profiles and interoperable money rails could dramatically shorten financing cycles, reduce duplication of credit checks and let different forms of digital money coexist in a single commercial flow. Policy background The Digital Pound Lab is part of the Bank of England’s research into how a possible retail CBDC might interact with existing and emerging payment systems. The bank has not decided to issue a digital pound; the lab is an experimental environment to assess use cases, business models and technical needs. Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden has said the UK’s future retail payment infrastructure could accommodate multiple digital money forms — tokenized bank deposits, regulated stablecoins and a potential digital pound. Parallel policy work includes finalized stablecoin rules in June that set a £40 billion initial issuance ceiling per token and allowed issuers to hold up to 70% of reserves in short-term government debt. Separately, the BoE and FCA are supporting tokenized asset pilots: 16 firms, including HSBC and Euroclear, are preparing tokenized launches through a Digital Securities Sandbox from late 2026. Participants’ comments Ayo Ojerinola, founder and CEO of NOBO Finance, framed the Digital Pound Lab as a “safe environment to test” coordination across the many parties involved in cross-border trade. Dun & Bradstreet emphasized trust and verifiable identity. Polygon sees the experiment as a practical check on interoperability between private stablecoins and potential central bank digital money. Bottom line The Phase 2 tests stitch together identity, commercial data and multi-rail settlement to explore whether SMEs can carry reusable, verifiable credit profiles and whether stablecoins and digital-pound-style money can co-exist smoothly in real trade flows. The work won’t change policy immediately, but it contributes technical and operational evidence the Bank of England and market players need as they consider the future of digital payments and trade finance.