We're proud to announce that Millicent Labs was selected as one of the three teams identified by the audience on the basis of originality, completeness and quality of presentation in Phase 2 of Project Rosalind, a joint endeavour by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Bank of England (BoE) that explored application programming interfaces (APIs) for retail central bank digital currency (CBDC).
A global initiative, Project Rosalind was designed to facilitate experimentation and collaboration between central banks and the private sector, enabling financial services firms and technology companies to develop and test innovative solutions for the distribution and use of retail CBDCs.
In Phase 1 of the project, the BIS and BoE collaborated with a number of organisations to build a prototype API layer for a retail CBDC system.Phase 2, the ultimate phase of the project — where 23 companies were selected to develop the first-ever solutions on the Rosalind API — attracted entries from some of the world's most prominent financial services and tech firms.
After two rounds of selection, 12 teams were chosen to present at a global demo day event organised by the BIS Innovation Hub London Centre to present to the global central banking community, where Millicent Labs was selected as one of the three teams identified by the audience.
Millicent Labs' solution, TradeFi, was a secure trade finance platform designed to demonstrate how the Rosalind API’s functionality can be leveraged to unlock value constrained by current financial infrastructure — like the world’s $1.7tn trade finance gap.Leveraging Millicent’s existing product line, the TradeFi prototype delivered a streamlined and secure escrow process — paired with a competitive secondary market — designed to protect both buyers and sellers as well as increase access to financing, especially for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), highlighting a valuable real-world use case for these digital currencies.
Kene Ezeji-Okoye, co-CEO of Millicent Labs, said, "We are thrilled to be recognised by such a prestigious project. Our goal at Millicent Labs is to utilise distributed ledger technology to create a more efficient, interconnected and inclusive global financial system — the work presented to the BIS, BoE, and wider central banking community is a testament to this mission, and we are excited to see the real-world impact these solutions will have in the near-term future."
Millicent Labs is a UK-based company led by war-refugee turned Harvard Business School alum and Wall Street veteran, Stella Dyer, and serial entrepreneur, Kene Ezeji-Okoye. Through its delivery of innovative digital financial infrastructure, the company’s mission is to create the conditions for increased prosperity through the inclusive and frictionless transfer of value.
Following on from their government funding via UK Research and Innovation as well as support from leading accelerator programs and innovation hubs — including Barclays’ Eagle Labs and Allen & Overy’s Fuse — this participation in Project Rosalind was another significant milestone for Millicent Labs and their innovative approach to digital finance.
About Millicent Labs:
London-based Millicent Labs is an award-winning innovator in distributed ledger technology, tokenisation and digital finance with support from some of the world’s most prominent firms. Named one of the UK's Top 100 startups for its tokenised bank deposit infrastructure, the company is committed to breaking down silos and transforming the global financial system into an open and interconnected digital network benefiting stakeholders on all sides by combining the safeguards of today’s financial system with the exponential advantages of highly interoperable application-specific distributed ledgers.
