UK Tokenisation Drive May Boost Annual Output by $44 Billion: Report

The UK could generate up to 33 billion British pounds, or $44 billion (roughly Rs. 4,20,948 crore), in annual output by 2035 by pioneering tokenised financial markets, according to an estimate by the government-backed Industry Taskforce on FinTech. The estimate is in the first report published by Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Chris Woolard, who was appointed by HM Treasury to assist with the implementation of the government's digital market strategy. This report, which is the result of collaboration with a task force within the industry, outlines a 12-month project to test the use of blockchain for a financial transaction involving securities.

Roadmap Calls for Tokenised Government Bond by Early 2027

Furthermore, the initiative requires the issuance of the first tokenised government bond by the UK before the first quarter of 2027. The industry task force consists of over 50 firms from both the traditional finance and crypto sectors, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS, Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Kraken, DTCC, and Euroclear. It seeks to transition the UK from pilot projects to active trading in tokenised securities. According to the report, the challenge now is to make the transition “from pilots to scale” and “from ambition to action.”

Ripple, which is listed among the task force's industry members, backed the initiative and said, “On-chain funds, bonds, and repo aren't experiments. They're already happening, delivering on-chain financial instruments that are cheaper, better, and faster than their legacy equivalents.” The company further added that, “The UK has the capital markets depth and regulatory credibility to be a global leader in tokenised wholesale markets, delivering up to £33bn in annual economic output by 2035.” 

The Digital Gilt instrument itself is not a novel concept either, as the UK government announced the Digital Gilt Instrument Pilot in November 2024. Subsequently, in July 2025, there were further developments regarding the plans for on-chain settlements, over-the-counter trading, and secondary market development. On February 12, the government chose the Orion platform by HSBC to help with the pilot. 

Earlier in June, the RWA sector displayed growth despite a bear market, while the value of financial assets held on-chain has risen by 37 percent over the last half year due to the transition of traditional financial products onto blockchain platforms. As per data from Token Terminal, tokenised assets currently have a market valuation above $43 billion (roughly Rs. 4,11,381 crore), a higher amount compared to others within the industry.