Britain Unveils Plans for Round-the-Clock Settlement Systems to Enable Tokenized Markets
Britain's financial regulators, the FCA and Bank of England, have launched consultations on tokenization frameworks and proposals to expand operational hours for the nation's primary payment and settlement systems to almost continuous availability.
Britain's central bank unveiled plans on Monday to expand operational hours for its primary settlement systems to achieve almost round-the-clock availability, forming part of a comprehensive initiative alongside the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to ready the nation's wholesale financial markets for the era of tokenized finance.
The initiative aims to introduce weekend operations and lengthened daily service hours for the central bank's settlement platform, Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), along with the Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS).
According to the Bank of England, the enhanced operational availability would facilitate international payment flows and emerging payment and settlement frameworks as the tokenization landscape evolves.
According to the collaborative announcement released on Monday, the consultation initiative will facilitate international payment flows and emerging payment and settlement frameworks driven by advancements in tokenization.
Public comments on the consultation document are being accepted by the BoE through July 3, with a response summary scheduled for publication during the summer months.
The announcement follows recent remarks from the FCA indicating that tokenization and distributed ledger technologies have the potential to enhance fund management efficiency and drive innovation throughout the UK asset management industry.
"Fantastic to see the UK setting out a clear vision for tokenization in wholesale markets,"
Katie Harries, head of policy for Europe at Coinbase
"The opportunity is huge — not only for companies seeking new pools of capital, but for the 'unbrokered': the many individuals globally who are not able to participate in capital markets today," she added.
PRA plans consultation on tokenization framework in 2028
Meanwhile, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) released revised guidance directed at bank chief executives, recommending that tokenized financial products be subject to identical regulatory standards as their conventional counterparts when their legal characteristics and risk profiles are equivalent, superseding previous guidance from 2022.
According to the PRA, this communication will function as transitional guidance pending the publication of a more comprehensive prudential framework, which will follow the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's (BCBS) focused examination of banking institutions' cryptocurrency asset exposure requirements.
The BCBS initiated this examination in November 2025 to assess the prudential handling of tokenization, stablecoins and permissionless blockchain networks, with findings anticipated to be released later this year.
According to the PRA, consultation on a proposed permanent framework is anticipated no sooner than 2028.
Within the UK's regulatory structure, cryptocurrency oversight would predominantly be assigned to the FCA, the nation's principal financial markets supervisory body.
In a separate development, the FCA launched a public consultation regarding its cryptocurrency regulatory framework on April 30, concentrating on stablecoin creation, trading activities, custody services and staking operations. Full implementation of the regulatory framework is projected to be completed by October 2027.