The United Kingdom is moving to position itself as a global hub for tokenized finance, with a government-backed roadmap outlining concrete steps to integrate blockchain technology into mainstream capital markets rather than limiting it to small-scale experiments.
A report led by Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Chris Woolard estimates that a mature tokenized financial ecosystem could contribute up to £33 billion ($44 billion) to the UK’s economy each year by 2035. The strategy reflects the government’s broader ambition to modernize financial infrastructure while maintaining London’s competitiveness as a global financial center.
Instead of focusing solely on issuing tokenized assets, the roadmap emphasizes building an ecosystem where digital securities can function much like traditional financial instruments. Over the next 12 months, industry participants plan to test blockchain-based transactions in which tokenized securities are used as collateral for short-term borrowing, an important step toward creating fully operational digital capital markets.
A key milestone in the roadmap is the planned launch of the UK’s first tokenized government bond, or digital gilt, by the first quarter of 2027. However, policymakers see the issuance itself as only the beginning. The long-term objective is to enable these digital bonds to trade on secondary markets, settle onchain and eventually qualify as collateral in transactions involving the Bank of England.
The initiative has attracted broad support from both traditional financial institutions and crypto firms. More than 50 organizations—including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS, Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Kraken, DTCC and Euroclear—are participating in the industry task force responsible for shaping the roadmap.
The report argues that tokenized securities will struggle to gain widespread adoption unless they can move freely throughout the financial system. For that reason, it recommends that the Bank of England eventually recognize digital gilts as eligible collateral, allowing financial institutions to borrow cash against tokenized government debt just as they do with conventional bonds.
Ripple welcomed the roadmap, arguing that blockchain-based financial products have already moved beyond the experimental stage. The company said tokenized funds, bonds and repo markets are demonstrating greater efficiency and lower costs than many legacy financial systems.
The latest proposal also builds on groundwork laid over the past two years. The UK introduced its Digital Gilt Instrument pilot in late 2024, later expanding the initiative to include onchain settlement, over-the-counter trading and secondary-market development. Earlier this year, HSBC’s Orion platform was selected to support the government’s digital bond program.
Supporting these ambitions is the UK’s growing blockchain payment infrastructure. Since late 2023, London-based Fnality has operated a sterling payment network backed by central bank reserves, providing infrastructure capable of supporting real-time settlement, tokenized securities and digital repo transactions.
Rather than treating tokenization as a niche innovation, the UK’s latest roadmap signals a shift toward rebuilding core financial market infrastructure around blockchain technology. If successfully implemented, the initiative could make tokenized government debt and digital collateral a standard part of the country’s wholesale financial system while strengthening London’s position in the next generation of global finance.
