UK names 6 banks to lead DIGIT digital gilt — SkimNews
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- HM Treasury named 6 banks to lead the issuance of DIGIT, the UK's first digitally native government bond, with the pilot targeting issuance for early next year
- DIGIT will operate within the UK's Digital Securities Sandbox, testing distributed ledger technology across the bond's full lifecycle from issuance through onchain settlement
- HSBC was appointed in February as the pilot's DLT supplier and in July signed an agreement with the London Stock Exchange Group to build a digital securities depository link
- Lucy Rigby called the bank appointments "a practical test of new financial market infrastructure" in an X post, framing them as a milestone toward early-next-year issuance
- Richard Baker, CEO of Tokenovate and a member of HM Treasury's Wholesale Digital Markets Industry Taskforce, warned that onchain settlement must connect with existing cash, custody, and settlement systems using common standards or risk creating "new digital silos"
- Marius Jurgilas, a former central banker now CEO of Axiology, said connecting issuance, distribution, trading, and settlement through regulated infrastructure could broaden investor bases for tokenized debt across borders
Why it matters: The UK is putting six institutions on the hook to execute the first major sovereign DLT-based gilt issuance, targeted for early 2026. Baker's own caveat that the project must avoid "new digital silos" is the core risk: the pilot only works if onchain settlement plugs into existing cash, custody, and clearing infrastructure rather than running as a parallel rail.
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