The event was held on 20-21 November at the EY Fintech Lab in Canary Wharf, London, and supported by tech partners R3 and Quant. 

The two-day event brought together leading financial institutions, FinTechs and innovators to explore the transformative potential of the RLN, a new financial market infrastructure that leverages tokenisation, programmability, and interoperability for regulated digital money. 

The teams represented were: Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Santander, R3, Quant, Applied Blockchain, Clearbank/GMEX, Commerzbank, EPAM, Kaleido, OneID, Millicent/Agant, Projective Group, SETL and Wipro. 

Participants were tasked with designing innovative use cases on the RLN platform. 

Teams produced a range of concepts, including using Digital ID to fight APP fraud, tax automation for SMEs, and cross-border payment solutions. 

The winning team, Kaleido, impressed the judges with their ‘Interop Hub for Cross-ledger Asset Networks and Cash Settlements’. Kaleido’s entry demonstrated the RLN’s ability to facilitate cross-ledger transactions, allowing financial institutions and other entities to settle tokenised assets, like bonds and funds, while managing payments through various forms of money like tokenised deposits. 

Judges praised the solution for testing their thinking with detailed feedback for the next phase of the RLN project. Their solution brought to life the real-world application of the RLN, demonstrating the value of connecting digital money and asset ledgers. 

Runners up were Commerzbank and Setl, and Millicent/Agant’s entry was highly commended. 

Jana Mackintosh, Managing Director of Payments and Innovation at UK Finance, said:

This hackathon has been a powerful demonstration of the innovation that the RLN can unlock for the UK’s financial system. Kaleido’s solution showcases the possibilities of digital money and sets a high benchmark for what can be achieved on this platform. We are excited to continue developing the RLN concept, so we can support policymakers and regulators in making the government’s National Payments Vision a reality.

Mike Zehetmayr, UK Financial Services Partner at EY, said:

Bringing together such a diverse range of organisations to innovate and collaborate has been an important step in building on the foundational capabilities of the RLN. The solutions showcased at this Hackathon highlight just how much potential the RLN has to not just enhance, but transform the UK payments landscape, and reinforces that the next generation of payments innovation is on the cusp of being a reality.

Javier Garcia, Global Lead of Digital Assets & Tokenisation at Kaleido, said:

The ability of the RLN platform to give access to different forms of money is something unique in the market. In particular, the interoperability between the RLN connecting with other infrastructures where digital assets live is going to unlock a lot of possibilities. We were able to programme different forms of money with multiple asset classes in many different ways, expanding how people and businesses use money, preserving privacy across networks. Interoperability, programmability and privacy were the three key tenets to the work we did during the event.

More information about the RLN concept can be found here.

More information about the UK Finance Project: https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/regulated-liability-network