UK lays out tokenized finance roadmap with projected £33 billion annual boost

The U.K. has published a roadmap for tokenizing wholesale financial markets, saying the plan could add up to £33 billion in annual economic output and £14 billion in annual tax revenue by 2035 if it can move quickly to build the supporting infrastructure.

The first report from the government's Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, Christopher Woolard, focuses on tokenized government bonds, stablecoins and onchain settlements as the U.K. looks to become known as a global crypto and digital financial hub.

The report notes that tokenization has moved firmly beyond experimentation and is becoming a keystone to the next generation of financial markets. Because of this, it warns that without a solid plan, the U.K. risks losing liquidity, influence, and market share.

It estimates the global tokenized asset market could reach $88 trillion by 2035, up from roughly $23 billion today, according to The Block's estimates, though other industry trackers place the current market closer to $36 billion.

Among its recommendations, the report calls for the U.K. to prioritize its Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot and aim for first issuance by the first quarter of 2027, expanding the use of tokenized collateral and building the payment rails to settle tokenized assets and stablecoins. It also recognizes the need to establish legal and tax standards so institutions will be comfortable adopting the technology.

"The tokenisation of financial markets is already happening, delivering onchain funds, bonds and repo that are more liquid, mobile and efficient than their legacy equivalents," Ripple's Head of Policy UK & Europe Matthew Osborne said in a statement. He said the report marks "a promising step forward."

Banking Circle's Chief Digital Assets Officer Kirit Bhatia agreed that the roadmap acknowledges the need to modernize payment infrastructure to support tokenized assets.

"Tokenised markets will need payment infrastructure that can support real-time settlement, cross-border movement, multiple forms of regulated money and interoperability between stablecoins, tokenised deposits and existing fiat rails," Bhatia said. "Without that, digital assets risk becoming faster at the edges but still constrained by the legacy plumbing underneath."