The UK government has started a major push to speed up tokenization in wholesale financial markets, bringing together over 50 top financial institutions such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS. Led by HM Treasury and supported by the City of London Corporation, the taskforce will spend the next year testing real-world uses for tokenization, starting with tokenized repo markets. This effort shows the UK’s aim to stay a global financial centre as tokenized assets become more important in modern finance.
Source: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
The initiative is being overseen by Chris Woolard, HM Treasury’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, who recently published the first of two reports outlining the government’s vision for digital financial markets.
The report says tokenization could make financial markets more efficient by cutting settlement times, lowering costs, and increasing transparency. The government estimates these changes could boost the UK’s economy by up to £33 billion a year by 2035 and bring in about £14 billion more in tax revenue.
Industry estimates show big potential for growth. Boston Consulting Group predicts the global market for tokenized real-world assets could reach $88 trillion by 2035, making it much larger than the current crypto and stablecoin markets combined.
A key part of the UK’s plan is to issue government debt in tokenized form through the proposed DIGIT program. Experts think a government-backed digital bond could help build trust and support wider tokenized capital markets.
Still, people in the industry warn that technology by itself is not enough. Kirit Bhatia, Chief Digital Assets Officer at Banking Circle, said tokenized assets will need modern payment systems that can handle real-time settlement, cross-border transfers, and work smoothly with stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and traditional banks.
The Bank of England is also expected to keep working on adding blockchain to its upgraded real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system over the next few years.
As other countries in Europe and the United States develop similar projects, the UK hopes that working early with major financial institutions will help keep London as a top global centre for digital finance.
Onchain funds, bonds and repo aren’t experiments. They’re already happening, delivering onchain financial instruments that are cheaper, better and faster than their legacy equivalents.
The UK has the capital markets depth and regulatory credibility to be a global leader in… pic.twitter.com/ELEP4x9UGL
— Ripple (@Ripple) July 13, 2026
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