UK taps BlackRock, Ripple, Barclays and other major firms for tokenization taskforce

The UK has unveiled a plan to scale tokenization across wholesale financial markets, backed by a cross-industry taskforce of 54 firms, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Coinbase, Kraken and Ripple, as well as asset manager BlackRock, according to an official sector report and announcement from the City of London Corporation and HM Treasury.

Led by Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Chris Woolard, the initiative aims to move the UK from pilot projects to live tokenized markets through coordinated action by industry, government and regulators.

According to the report, tokenization could improve market efficiency, liquidity, innovation, and resilience while enhancing the UK’s international competitiveness. It estimates that tokenization could contribute up to £33 billion in annual economic output and £14 billion in annual tax revenues by 2035, supported by a global tokenized real-world assets market projected to reach $88 trillion.

To support large-scale adoption, the report calls for the need for clear legal, regulatory, and tax frameworks, stronger interoperability across domestic and international markets, and a coordinated national strategy.

Key priorities are tokenized primary issuance, tokenized collateral and investment funds, digital payment rails, legal and regulatory certainty, interoperability standards, financial crime compliance, tax neutrality, and operational resilience, it identifies.

Digital Markets Champion Industry Taskforce

As noted, the implementation will be delivered over the next 12 months by a cross-industry taskforce comprising 54 organizations working with the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion.

Supported by the City of London Corporation and industry bodies including TheCityUK, UK Finance, the Investment Association, and Innovate Finance, the taskforce will initially focus on delivering a live end-to-end tokenized repo use case through nine dedicated Action Groups covering the full tokenization value chain, alongside legal, tax, compliance, resilience, and communications.

The governance model will evolve over time and is supported by a wide range of public and private sector contributors.

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