The Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England published a joint call for input on 18 May 2026, setting out what they describe as a “shared vision” for tokenisation in UK wholesale financial markets. The deadline for responses is 3 July. A feedback statement is promised for summer.
The language is typically measured. The implications are not.
This is the first time both UK regulators have aligned on a single infrastructure roadmap for digital securities. The document is not aspirational. It commits the Bank of England to a live synchronisation service by 2028, sets prudential equivalence as policy, and positions 16 firms already operating inside the Digital Securities Sandbox as the test bed. The question now is whether the regulated community treats it as a consultation or a countdown.
What the Vision Actually Says
The call for input has three operational pillars.
First, a comprehensive regulatory regime for the issuance and settlement of digital securities. The FCA’s ambition is not a carve-out or a sandbox extension. It is a permanent, mainline regime that covers tokenised bonds, equities, and fund units. The Digital Securities Sandbox, which has been running with 16 live firms since its launch, is explicitly framed as the proving ground — not the destination.
Second, prudential equivalence. The FCA and BoE want tokenised assets to receive the same prudential treatment as their non-tokenised equivalents. For PRA-regulated banks, this means tokenised collateral will be eligible under the same haircut and eligibility frameworks as legacy instruments, once the regime is settled. This matters more than most commentary has acknowledged. If a tokenised gilt receives different haircut treatment than a paper gilt, the economics of holding one versus the other diverge. Regulators are explicitly trying to prevent that fragmentation.
Third, real-money settlement. The Bank of England is targeting 2028 for a live synchronisation service that enables atomic settlement of digital asset ledgers in sterling central bank money via RTGS. It has already launched a Synchronisation Lab with 18 participants. “Atomic settlement” means both legs of a securities transaction complete simultaneously — delivery and payment — without either party bearing overnight credit exposure. RTGS-backed atomic settlement in central bank money is, in practice, the holy grail for institutional digital securities adoption.
Why the 2028 Horizon Is the Number That Matters
Infrastructure timelines in financial services are almost always fiction. 2028 for RTGS synchronisation is worth taking seriously for two reasons.
The Bank of England has already spent two years building out RTGS 2.0, the rebuilt core settlement platform that went live in 2024. The new RTGS architecture was specifically designed to support synchronisation with external ledgers. The 2028 target is not greenfield — it is a capability extension on existing production infrastructure.
Separately, the Bank has also opened a consultation on extending RTGS and CHAPS settlement hours toward near 24/7 operation. Both efforts — extended hours and synchronisation — point in the same direction: settlement infrastructure that can interoperate with digital markets that do not stop at 4:30 pm on a Friday.
The 16 firms inside the DSS have until December 2028 before the Sandbox closes, and the application window is expected to remain open until approximately March 2027. That overlap is not accidental. The plan appears to be: prove real-world issuance and settlement in the DSS, migrate to the permanent regime, then plug the permanent regime into the 2028 RTGS synchronisation service.
The Post-Brexit Competition Angle
The timing is pointed. The US has moved quickly on digital asset market structure in 2025 and 2026, with the SEC and CFTC both issuing new guidance and pilot programmes for tokenised securities. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) is now in effect, and several EU regulators have launched their own tokenised bond programmes.
London’s pitch is regulatory coherence. The joint FCA-BoE document signals that the UK will not try to out-permissive the US or out-harmonise the EU. The competitive angle is infrastructure certainty: one regime, both regulators, central bank money settlement, live test environment. For institutions deciding where to book tokenised fixed-income activity, regime certainty may matter more than permissiveness.
The consultation asks firms specifically about what regulatory and infrastructure gaps are preventing them from scaling tokenised activity. That framing suggests the authorities already have a diagnosis and are looking for confirmation, not discovery.
What Respondents Should Focus On
The July 3 deadline gives firms six weeks from the original publication. The FCA and BoE have asked for input on six areas: legal recognition, prudential treatment, tokenised collateral eligibility, settlement instruments, market infrastructure authorisation, and the path from DSS to the permanent regime.
Of these, the most consequential for day-to-day operations are collateral eligibility and settlement instruments. If tokenised gilts cannot be used as collateral at CCPs without haircut penalties relative to their non-tokenised equivalents, the economics of tokenisation in repo and derivatives margining will remain unfavorable. The FCA and BoE’s stated goal is equivalence, but the mechanism for achieving it — and the timeline — remain in the consultation stage.
Firms that respond substantively on those two questions will have disproportionate influence over the final regime design. That is not an accident either.
The Infrastructure Bet
The UK is making a specific bet: that institutional adoption of tokenised wholesale markets requires regulator-backed settlement infrastructure, not just regulatory permissiveness. The 2028 RTGS synchronisation commitment is the proof point. If it delivers on schedule, London has a credible claim to being the most institutionally-ready market for tokenised securities in the G7.
If it does not, the DSS will remain a well-regarded experiment and the vision document will be filed next to several previous well-regarded experiments.
The FCA and BoE are aware of the credibility risk. The 18-participant Synchronisation Lab, the DSS operational track record, and the explicit 2028 commitment are all calibrated to make the intention legible. Whether they are sufficient to prompt the capital commitment from the 16 DSS firms and the broader market is what the July response period will reveal.
Sources: FCA Call for Input, May 2026 · Bank of England press release · Mayer Brown analysis · Regulation Tomorrow
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