54 Institutions Unite Behind UK Wholesale Digital Markets Taskforce A coalition of 54 global financial institutions, including @BlackRock, @JPMorgan, @GoldmanSachs, and @Coinbase, has formall
A coalition of 54 global financial institutions, including @BlackRock, @JPMorgan, @GoldmanSachs, and @Coinbase, has formally joined a UK government-backed effort to bring tokenization into mainstream wholesale financial markets. The UK has formally launched the Wholesale Digital Markets Taskforce, bringing together 54 financial institutions to accelerate the adoption of tokenized financial markets. Other participants include Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS, Circle, and Ripple.
The initiative is led by HM Treasury's Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Chris Woolard, the former chair of the FCA.The group, backed by the City of London Corporation, will spend the next year working on live tokenisation use cases across UK financial markets.Early priorities include tokenized repo markets, digital government bonds, and expanding regulated blockchain infrastructure.
The goals are practical and commercial rather than exploratory. Bringing traditional instruments such as Gilts and private equity onto blockchain rails is expected to streamline settlement and reduce counterparty risk, core pain points for institutions operating in the City of London. Industry projections suggest the effort could generate as much as £33 billion in annual economic output for the UK economy by 2035.
The taskforce operates against a supportive regulatory backdrop. The Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) facilitates the use of developing technology such as distributed ledgers in the issuance, trading, and settlement of securities in the UK.The Bank of England and FCA opened the DSS on 30 September 2024.It is a regulated live environment created to explore how developing technologies could be used by firms to undertake the activities of notary, maintenance, and settlement for financial securities.
UK authorities plan to publish a cross-authority roadmap for wholesale market digitalization by the end of 2026, followed by consultations on rule changes in 2027. That regulatory pipeline gives participating institutions a clearer timeline than most comparable initiatives elsewhere.
The scale of institutional commitment signals a shift in how the industry views the technology. The participation of major banks, asset managers, and digital asset companies suggests tokenization is increasingly being treated as core financial infrastructure rather than an emerging technology, with institutions focusing on commercial deployment instead of proof-of-concept trials.The tokenised RWA market could reach $88 trillion by 2035, according to one estimate by Boston Consulting Group.
Sources:CoinDesk: UK Government Unveils Tokenization Taskforce with BlackRock, Goldman, JPMorganBank of England: Digital Securities SandboxCoinsPpress: UK Unites 54 Finance Leaders to Accelerate Tokenization
