The grouping together of the organizations to form the Forum for Digital Currencies (FDC) comes at a prescient time for the digital currency space.

The UK Treasury spoke in April of becoming a “crypto hub”. Then-Chancellor-of-the-Exchequer Rishi Sunak said that “effective regulation” would encourage “the businesses of tomorrow to invest, innovate and scale up on UK shores”.

The formation of the FDC is a further step in this direction, and comes after Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith told MPs this week that the UK was still committed to becoming a world crypto hub.

“Digital currencies have been gaining rapid momentum over the past few years and have the potential to change how society thinks about and uses money,” the alliance said in a press release. “While there are risks, the UK FDC recognises this growing interest and the adoption of new forms of digital money across the globe and how it will open many opportunities for the UK to remain competitive in fintech, while leading financial innovation with the right regulatory framework”.

Competitive edge

“The group behind the FDC is not a new one. We’ve been informally sharing knowledge for much of 2022 and decided towards the end of last year that, in those areas where we are working towards the same goals, rather than repeating the same efforts, we should come together and collectively leverage our combined capabilities,” says Jannah Patchay, Policy Lead, Digital Pound Foundation.

“The work that we can do in facilitating the formation and regulation of policy in the space will help. Ultimately a lot of this is driven by governments and policymakers. We are trying to feed into that and influence its direction. We see digital money as an enabler in the transition to a digital economy more broadly as well as enabling the development and growth of digital asset – and digitised financial – markets.”