UK roadmap for tokenised finance forecasts £33bn annual boost

The UK government published a roadmap for tokenising wholesale financial markets, produced by Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Christopher Woolard. The report projects the programme could add up to £33 billion in annual economic output and £14 billion in annual tax revenue by 2035 if supporting infrastructure is built quickly.

The report prioritises tokenised government bonds, stablecoins and onchain settlement as initial areas for development. It notes that tokenisation has moved beyond early experimentation and warns the UK could lose liquidity, influence and market share without a clear plan and faster infrastructure rollout. The report cites industry estimates that the global market for tokenised assets could reach $88 trillion by 2035, while other trackers place the current market value in the tens of billions of dollars.

Key recommendations call for prioritising the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot, with a target for first issuance by the first quarter of 2027, expanding the use of tokenised collateral and building payment rails able to settle tokenised assets and regulated stablecoins. The report also asks for legal and tax frameworks to provide the certainty institutions need to adopt tokenised products.

Industry figures welcomed the roadmap while noting infrastructure gaps. Matthew Osborne, Ripple’s head of policy for the UK and Europe, described tokenisation as delivering onchain funds, bonds and repo that are more liquid, mobile and efficient than legacy equivalents and called the report a promising step forward. Kirit Bhatia, chief digital assets officer at Banking Circle, warned payment systems must be modernised to support real-time settlement, cross-border flows and interoperability between stablecoins, tokenised deposits and existing fiat rails, adding that without upgraded plumbing digital assets risk being faster at the edges but constrained underneath.

The DIGIT pilot is designed to test onchain issuance and settlement of government debt. Work on tokenised collateral and stablecoins aims to shorten settlement times and widen cross-border liquidity by enabling faster, programmable settlement on digital rails. The report highlights that clear rules on ownership, custody and tax treatment will be important to encourage pension funds, asset managers and banks to place assets on tokenised platforms.

This is Woolard’s first substantive report in his role as Wholesale Digital Markets Champion. It sets near-term targets and outlines technical, legal and regulatory tasks that government, regulators and market participants will need to coordinate over the coming years to implement the roadmap’s proposals.