UK tokenization roadmap aims £33 billion boost by 2035

A United Kingdom government-backed task force has published a roadmap to move tokenized financial markets from experimental pilots to live trading and settlement, estimating the initiative could add up to 33 billion pounds annually to the nation's economic output by 2035. The report, led by HM Treasury's Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Chris Woolard, outlines a 12-month plan focused on practical implementation, including testing a tokenized repo transaction and calling for the issuance of the UK's first digital government bond, or gilt, by the first quarter of 2027.

The strategy aims to shift tokenization beyond isolated demonstrations into scalable markets where securities can be traded, settled, and used as collateral. A central objective is for the Bank of England to accept these tokenized gilts as collateral, a step the report describes as critical for turning digital assets into mainstream funding tools. The plan builds on existing initiatives, including the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot announced in late 2024 and a blockchain-based wholesale payment system launched by Fnality in September 2025, which is designed to support real-time settlement.