The UK assembled a cross-border coalition of 54 financial firms to define common standards for tokenizing wholesale markets, part of a government push to make London the preferred hub for issuing, trading and settling assets on a blockchain.
UK Enlists 54 Firms for Tokenized Markets 'Big Bang'
14 July 2026 - 14:18 CEST
Roadmap to 2035
Chris Woolard, the UK Treasury's Wholesale Digital Markets Champion and former FCA chair, together with the City of London Corporation, introduced a report on 13 Jul featuring a roadmap to make the nation a global venue for wholesale tokenized markets for large financial institutions. The shift could add as much as £33bn to annual economic output and £14bn in annual tax revenues by 2035, according to the report.
Tokenization involves representing ownership of a physical or financial asset as a digital token on a blockchain.
Vying to be the hub
The market for tokenized assets could reach $88tn by 2035, according to the report. By convening a global roster of banks, exchanges and crypto firms, London is seeking to ensure its financial centre, rules and market infrastructure become the global venue where large-scale, institution-to-institution tokenized securities and money are issued, traded, cleared and settled worldwide.
"The UK has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead a digital Big Bang in financial services," said Chris Hayward, policy chair of the City of London Corporation.
From Coinbase to BlackRock
The coalition comprises global banks, exchanges, asset managers and crypto infrastructure providers from the US, UK and Europe.
Participants from the US include Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Fireblocks, Digital Asset/Canton, Kraken, Jane Street, Citadel Securities, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, State Street and Invesco.
The UK and Europe are represented by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Standard Chartered, ClearBank, LSEG/LCH, Euroclear UK & International, Clearstream, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Fidelity International and others.
Reeves backs the push
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said on 13 Jul that harnessing tokenization was key to protecting the UK's standing in global finance. "The UK is already a world leader in global finance and keeping that top spot means harnessing technologies like tokenization," she said. "It will make our markets even more competitive, attract investment to the economy and drive growth across the UK."
Washington and Hong Kong
The UK isn't alone in enlisting digital asset firms to help shape regulation and policy. Washington has consulted crypto industry insiders to help craft broad market rules. Hong Kong's de facto central bank, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, has convened a Tokenised Bond Expert Group and, separately, built Project Ensemble around a wider industry community to develop tokenization infrastructure.
The EU has pursued its own industry coordination, more focused on regulatory and market-infrastructure questions.
Setting the standards
For the UK, having a large, multinational group in the same room could reduce the risk of building a narrow domestic ecosystem that lacks liquidity, interoperability and global relevance, and allow it to shape standards from the start rather than importing these later from the US or EU.
This approach could give the UK an edge as the venue of choice for tokenized deposits, tokenized securities, collateral mobility and post-trade infrastructure, as firms gravitate to the jurisdiction with the deepest industry buy-in.
Over the next 12 months, members of the cross-industry taskforce will work with the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion on areas such as primary issuance, including the government's DIGIT (Digital Gilt Instrument) pilot to issue the UK's first native digital sovereign bond on a blockchain.
The coalition members will also look at tokenized collateral, tokenized funds, payment rails for digital markets, legal and regulatory certainty, interoperability standards, financial crime compliance, tax neutrality and resilience.
