Banks get better terms when they negotiate together.
Digital Local Currency Limited owns the know-how, technology and governance framework behind the Digital Local Currency Programme, which lets a syndicate of banks pool their collective demand for a currency, contract directly with a single sponsor bank in the destination market, and reach that market’s retail payment infrastructure.
Three things change
Many to one, not one to one. Banks in a market assess their collective demand for a currency and approach the destination as a syndicate. Volume that would be marginal for any single bank becomes worth negotiating over, and the terms are set once for the group.
Direct, not intermediated. The syndicate contracts with the sponsor bank itself. No correspondent chain, and none of the compliance cost each additional hop carries.
Retail, not wholesale. Correspondent relationships move institutional flows. A sponsor bank shares its retail payment infrastructure, so member banks reach domestic QR schemes and instant payment rails on the same terms as a resident.
The Programme is delivered in each market by a local program provider, established with a qualified local partner. Membership agreements are signed between the local program provider and the participating bank. Regulated activity, custody of funds and settlement sit with the licensed banks that participate.
What local program providers deliver
Member banks expect more than access. Five capabilities sit inside every market programme, each one a condition of the network working rather than an addition to it.
Cross-border regulatory and compliance advisory
Establishing the shared framework that lets two banks in two jurisdictions contract with each other directly.
Read moreLocal-currency treasury matching
Identifying and arranging the counterparty positions that let member banks hold and settle in each other’s currencies.
Read moreInstitutional training and certification
University-accredited programmes for member bank staff, delivered with an education partner.
Read moreNetwork technology assurance
Auditing core banking, switching, card and merchant systems against the throughput standards the network requires.
Read moreProgramme communications
Multilingual publication and localisation, so material developed anywhere in the network reaches each market in its own language.
Read moreWhere the Programme is proven
The cashless transition is not uniform. Four markets show why sovereign-aligned architecture is necessary, and what happens without it.
Türkiye
Card payments overtook cash at the point of sale by 2022, and FAST passed 3.5 million daily transactions by 2024, while the shadow economy still holds an estimated 25 to 30% of GDP.
India
UPI processed 228.3 billion transactions in 2025, roughly 49% of global real-time volume, proving open architecture can displace cash within a single generation.
Sweden
Cash fell under 1% of GDP by transaction value, creating a new governance problem: financial exclusion inside a hyper-advanced cashless economy.
Colombia
Nearly 400 fintechs, and 77.8% of daily transactions still in cash as of 2024. Infrastructure without incentive does not change behaviour.
Where DLC sits
Alongside central bank digital currencies
A CBDC is a monetary instrument. The Programme is the operational and compliance framework that lets domestic instruments reach across a border.
Distinct from private stablecoins
Private stablecoins move activity outside sovereign currency. The Programme is anchored in local currency and preserves monetary control.
Distinct from correspondent banking
Correspondent chains carry bilateral compliance cost at every hop. A shared framework removes that overhead against a global average remittance cost of 6.4%.