Industry and Web 5.0 Centre of Excellence
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Industry and Web 5.0 Centre of Excellence
The UEL Industry and Web 5.0 Centre (IW-5.0) is a collaborative research model that brings together industry, academia, and government to explore emerging technologies. The Centre's primary focus includes Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Metaverse, the Internet of Things (IoT), Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), digital currencies, and tokenised assets within the financial sector, as well as Regtech and Govtech.
By uniting top-tier researchers, students, and industry partners, the Centre will position UEL at the forefront of technological innovation. It will foster a dynamic academic environment and produce valuable research contributions in rapidly evolving fields such as AI, the Metaverse, IoT and 5G, digital currencies, digital securities, and tokenised assets. The Centre’s work will support sustainable, secure, and scalable technological advancements within the UK.
The Centre collaborates with government bodies and private sector partners to seamlessly contribute to enhancing national digital capabilities and strengthening economic resilience in the digital era. Through targeted programs, the Centre aims to develop a highly skilled, agile, and competitive workforce that can meet the demands of the rapidly evolving technological landscape. Its research projects thoroughly explore the significance of AI, tokenised central bank money, and financial assets, examining their impact on the financial ecosystem as well as the associated benefits, challenges, and future prospects.
Pioneering Emerging Technologies
The IW-5.0 Centre focuses on developing use cases at the intersection of AI, IoT, the Metaverse, CBDCs, and tokenised assets, creating solutions tailored to the financial, regulatory, and public sectors. This use-case-driven industrial and academic research will support financial services, government-backed CBDCs, and tokenised asset trading platforms, redefining digital finance, education models, and regulatory compliance.
The Centre will address the challenges and opportunities posed by these technologies, particularly in terms of policy, regulation, and market structure. Its collaborative approach will bring together businesses, financial institutions, regulators, and educators to harness these innovations.
The Centre will create new opportunities for financial inclusion, payment efficiency, and digital cash, while driving innovation and strengthening the resilience of the UK’s economy and public services, with a focus on central banks, commercial banks, and fund managers.
The Centre focuses on developing innovative AI-driven applications in Fintech, Regtech, Govtech, and EdTech to revolutionise processes and enhance efficiency. This includes building open-source frameworks for seamless integration into existing infrastructures.
Featured projects
The Centre, in collaboration with academia, financial institutions, regulators, and industry experts, will explore the intersection of AI, CBDC, Open Banking, and Open Finance. These projects aim to create pathways for new financial products and services by leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer experiences, ensure regulatory compliance, and drive innovation. This work will reshape how financial institutions operate, how regulations are managed, and how individuals engage with financial products. The Centre will also research CBDC integration with existing banking infrastructures and payment systems to improve monetary policy transmission and cross-border payments.
Interoperable Open-Source AI Platform to revolutionise the education sector: In the education sector, the Centre is developing an interoperable open-source AI platform to revolutionise learning. By deploying AI agents, education providers and students can enhance the learning experience, making it more personalised, efficient, and scalable. This initiative will transform how educational institutions operate and how students learn, fostering a more adaptive and responsive educational ecosystem.
Researching Policy and Economic Impact: Research into the economic impacts and regulatory challenges posed by CBDC adoption will focus on cross-border payments and remittances, examining the effects of cost reduction and transaction speed.
Asset Tokenisation Framework: The Centre is developing an asset tokenisation framework that allows the tokenisation of real-world assets—such as real estate, commodities, or securities—leveraging blockchain for fractional ownership and liquidity.
AI in Open Banking Ecosystem: In the Open Banking ecosystem, the Centre will use AI to enhance customer experiences, enabling them to securely share banking data across service providers and receive personalised financial insights and product recommendations.
List of expertise
The Centre will also conduct research on CBDC integration with existing banking infrastructures and payment systems to improve monetary policy transmission and cross-border payments.
- Open-Source AI Agent Framework for the education sector
- AI for Financial services and data
- Metaverse Innovation
- Central Bank Digital Currencies impact on UK Economy
- Tokenisation of money and Financial Assets
- Tokenisation of Assets
Leadership team
Director and Managing Lead, Industry and Web 5.0 Centre of Excellence
Professor Nazrul Islam is Chair Professor of Business, Director of Research Degrees (PhD/MPhil), and Associate Director of the UEL Centre of FinTech at the Royal Docks School of Business and Law, University of East London. He holds a PhD in Innovation Management, and his research interests span interdisciplinary fields, including the management of technology, technological transformation, the emergence and growth of disruptive and digital technology-based innovations, and the sustainability of SMEs.
Professor Islam's research has earned several prestigious awards, including the 'Brad Hosler Award for Outstanding Paper' from the USA and the 'Pratt & Whitney Canada Best Paper Award' from Canada. He serves on the board of directors for the Business and Applied Sciences Academy of North America. Additionally, he is an Associate Editor for Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Department Editor for IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning. Professor Islam has also acted as managing guest editor for several special issues of top-tier journals such as Technovation, TFSC, and IEEE TEM, among others.
Associate Director (Projects/R&D, CBDC/Tokenised Assets/ Digital Asset/AI)
Muhammad Rehman Tanoli has been at the forefront of research into CBDCs, tokenised digital assets, and blockchain technologies for over eight years, serving as both Head of Technology Innovation and R&D Lead. He is a former advisor to the APPG Blockchain and a member of the APPG AI. Currently, he leads research on central bank digital currencies at Rue-Dex and Portdex. Muhammad has extensive experience in blockchain strategy, regulatory frameworks, tokenised securities, asset-backed tokens, and blockchain implementation, development, and delivery. He also served as Head of the Secretariat and Steering Committee for the APPG Central Bank and Digital Currencies.
He has spearheaded the development of an open-source interoperable ledger for the financial sector, which enhances financial data governance and regulatory compliance. His research on distributed ledger technologies has focused on improving financial reporting practices and building trust among stakeholders. Additionally, he is running a project powered by blockchain and AI for software developers.
Other projects
Industry Tokenisation Models
UEL's objective is to collaborate with policymakers, regulators, and the private sector to help develop balanced regulatory frameworks that foster innovation while maintaining financial stability. This includes navigating regulatory landscapes such as the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) and similar regulations in Asia, the US and the UK. UEL's industry-level engagement and research will also address regulations from bodies like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the European Union (EU), and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).
Under this regulatory framework, UEL aims to assist organisations in understanding how to adopt and integrate digital assets into their strategies, including decentralised finance (DeFi) and peer-to-peer finance and trading platforms. Through educational offerings, consulting services, and collaborative research, UEL will provide the financial sector with the tools to integrate digital assets successfully, promoting both innovation and regulatory compliance while enhancing operational efficiency.
Tokenisation of Financial Sector
Through its R&D-focused work, UEL will help jurisdictions and the financial sector understand how tokenising traditional assets can create new opportunities for funds, bonds, securities, and invoices. Tokenisation results in enhanced liquidity, reduced transaction costs, and increased transparency within existing financial regulations. UEL also assists jurisdictions in understanding the adoption of tokenisation, such as through the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.
Additionally, UEL's expertise in AML (Anti-Money Laundering), KYC (Know Your Customer), and privacy practices enables the industry to securely issue, trade, and hold custody of tokenised assets. Our goal is to empower fund managers, securities companies, and stock exchanges to comprehend the impact of tokenising shares, bonds, and other securities on both primary and secondary markets. Our courses are designed to enhance the industry's capabilities for 24/7 trading, faster settlement times, and automated dividend payments, thus improving accuracy and reducing operational costs.
UEL is committed to supporting countries and financial institutions in establishing legal and technical frameworks for listing and trading tokenised securities, aligned with regulatory bodies such as the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), fostering a secure and compliant environment for digital asset trading.
Teaching fund managers how to tokenise units of mutual funds or hedge funds allows smaller investors to participate in high-value assets by owning fractional shares of these funds.
Central Bank Digital Currencies:
The objective is to assist central banks in exploring real-world use cases of both wholesale and retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), supported by evidence-based research. UEL aims to partner with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other academic institutions to contribute to the global dialogue on CBDCs. The goal is to help central banks benefit from best practices and lessons learned from countries and institutions piloting or deploying CBDCs at both wholesale and retail levels.
UEL will offer research, development, policy guidance, and pilot programme support to central banks. Through collaboration with central banks, financial institutions, and international organisations, UEL will help shape the future of digital currencies in a rapidly evolving financial landscape.
UEL will also explore how central banks can use wholesale CBDCs to effectively settle tokenised securities and other digital assets. Additionally, the research will focus on working with other central banks to test the interoperability of CBDCs for international trade and remittances between countries.
Furthermore, UEL's research will model CBDC interbank transfers and examine the role of large financial institutions in streamlining central bank operations. This will aim to enhance the speed and security of payment systems, settlement processes, and cross-border transactions.
AI Web 5.0 Focus
The objective of the UEL’s Web 5.0 initiative is to harness artificial intelligence (AI) to drive innovation across the education, SME, and financial sectors, with a focus on supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. The goal of this research is to help SMEs adopt AI-driven technologies, enhancing their processes and operations to remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.
UEL’s research explores how AI will transform education by personalising learning experiences, automating administrative tasks, and improving educational infrastructure. AI will also revolutionise customer experiences, streamline compliance, and enhance risk management.
UEL’s AI research offers practical benefits for UK SMEs, enabling them to optimise operations, enhance customer service, and drive growth. The UEL model can be applied to repetitive tasks in industries like automotive, inventory management, data entry, and customer support, leading to cost reduction and improved efficiency. Additionally, the research encourages SMEs to adopt AI-powered chatbots for enhanced customer engagement, providing timely responses and personalised experiences.
By leveraging AI, SMEs can analyse market trends, forecast demand, and make data-driven decisions to optimise inventory, pricing, and product development. This strategic use of AI is essential for SMEs to remain competitive in both domestic and international markets. UEL's focus on AI adoption aims to help UK SMEs realise this potential and thrive in the digital age.
Data Governance of Tokenised and AI economies
In the world of transactions—whether facilitated by AI agents or through tokenisation and atomic settlement—data governance will be a critical success factor for both tokenised and AI-driven economies. It will ensure that data generated through these transactions, whether by AI systems or tokenised assets, remains secure, private, and compliant with legal standards.
A comprehensive data governance research framework will assist enterprises, SMEs, and regulators in navigating the complex challenges of this tokenised and AI-driven future. This research will focus on maintaining data integrity, security, and compliance in an increasingly digital, decentralised, and data-centric economy.
AI to support UK SME market
UEL Web 5.0 aims to explore and develop a model for AI adoption by SMEs at the application layer within the context of a data market. This research will enable UK SMEs to harness the power of AI by integrating it into their operational processes and decision-making systems, leading to more efficient, data-driven business models. The research will focus on developing customisable AI models tailored to various SME industries, including retail, manufacturing, financial services, and healthcare. UEL’s plug-and-play AI tools will be designed to be interoperable with standard business software and cloud platforms.
Apply for Phd in Tokenised Assets, CBDC and AI
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Internship
Internship: Register for AI, Tokenised Assets, CBDC Research Internship
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