The UK could augment its annual economic output by as much as 33 billion British pounds ($44 billion) by 2035 by becoming a leader in tokenized financial markets, according to a government-backed industry task force.
Respect appears in the first report of wholesale digital markets champion Chris Woolard, who has been appointed by HM Treasury to facilitate implement the government’s digital markets strategy.
The report, developed in partnership with an industry task force, outlines a 12-month plan for testing blockchain technology in a financial transaction in which securities are used to lend cash. It also calls for the UK to issue its first tokenized government bond by the first quarter of 2027.
The industry task force brings together more than 50 classic finance and cryptocurrency firms, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS, Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Kraken, DTCC and Euroclear.
The roadmap aims to move tokenization in the UK beyond isolated pilots and into live markets where securities can be traded, settled and used as collateral. The report points out that the task now is to move “from pilot projects to scale” and “from ambition to action.”
Ripple, which is listed among the industry members of the task force, supported initiative on Monday. “Onchain funds, bonds and repos are not experiments,” the company said, adding that such instruments are already proving to be “cheaper, better and faster than their existing counterparts.”
The UK is building on digital bond and settlement initiatives
The digital government bond itself is not a up-to-date proposition. First the UK announced Digital Gilt Instrument pilot in November 2024
This was followed by a July 2025 update that outlined plans for onchain settlement, over-the-counter trading, and secondary market development. On February 12, the government appointed HSBC’s Orion platform to support the pilot.
The up-to-date report adds a timeline and expands the intended role of the financial instrument. In addition to the call for issuance, the report discusses subsequent digital bond offerings, live secondary market transactions, and eligibility for operate as central bank collateral.
The report said tokenized securities have restricted value unless they can be traded or used to raise cash, and urged the Bank of England to accept digital bonds as collateral.
Related: British politicians are considering a lasting ban on cryptocurrency transfers in the wake of the Nigel Farage scandal
The UK also has blockchain-based wholesale payments infrastructure that could support such markets. In December 2023, London-based Fnality launched a sterling-denominated payments system linked to central bank reserves, designed to support real-time repo transactions, tokenized securities settlements and cross-currency payments.
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