The Bank of England (BoE) has published a letter dated 15 July, responding to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's letter that set out the government's recommendations to the BoE's Financial Market Infrastructure Committee...more
Key developments of interest over the last month include: the UK government's communications in connection with the Chancellor's annual Mansion House speech, and the launch of its Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness...more
On 2 July 2025, the Bank of England published a speech delivered by Sasha Mills (Executive Director, Financial Market Infrastructure) at City Week 2025. The speech signals the Bank's support for the digitalisation of...more
The Bank of England (BoE) has published a speech by Sarah Breeden, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability, at the Point Zero Forum. The subject of the speech was the digitalisation of money and assets, and in particular the...more
The Bank of England (BoE) has published a series of documents regarding its work on implementing the digital pound. The Digital Pound Experiment Report on Offline Payments assesses the technical feasibility of implementing an...more
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published its Handbook Notice 128 which (among other things) confirms Handbook changes made by the Digital Securities Depositories Instrument 2025 (FCA 2025/14). The instrument...more
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced details of the launch of the procurement process for the pilot digital gilt instrument (DIGIT) issuance. The pilot aims to: (i) enable the government to explore how distributed...more
HM Treasury has published a letter (dated 18 December 2024) from Andrew Bailey, Bank of England Governor, in his role as Chair of the Financial Policy Committee. In the letter, Mr Bailey sets out the response of the FPC to...more
On 14 January 2025, the Bank of England ("BoE") published a design note outlining its current thinking relating to the design of a digital pound (the "Design Note") and a progress update summarising the BoE’s work on...more
On January 13, the NYDFS launched the Transatlantic Regulatory Exchange (TRE), an international secondment program with the Bank of England, which would allow collaboration between regulators by exchanging staff. The...more
In our previous Comparative Guide, we explored innovations in private forms of digital money and money-like instruments available to retail customers, including fiatreferencing stablecoins, e-money and tokenised deposits. As...more
On September 30, 2024, the UK Digital Securities Sandbox was officially declared open. The announcement was made by the Bank of England (BoE) and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), following the consultation earlier...more
Key developments of interest over the last month include: the European Parliament’s ECON Committee adopting draft reports on the European Commission’s PSR and PSD3 legislative proposals; ESMA consulting on 'reverse...more
Responses to the joint Bank of England and HM Treasury consultation paper on a “digital pound” are in, with over 50,000 submissions in total. The scale of feedback shows significant interest in a discussion which could pave...more
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 (Digital Securities Sandbox) Regulations 2023 came into force on Jan. 8, creating the U.K.'s first digital securities sandbox within which firms would be able to test new...more
The Bank of England has published a discussion paper on its proposed approach to developing a regulatory regime for systemic payment systems using stablecoins and related service providers. The BoE’s paper follows the...more
On 6 November 2023, the Bank of England (the UK’s central bank) issued a discussion paper on the regulation on stablecoins, alongside another paper by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (DP23/4) and a “Dear CEO” letter...more
November 15, 2023- U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC), and Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) led a letter with a bipartisan group of colleagues to the prudential regulators—the Office of...more
With new provisions in effect beginning August 29, 2023, the UK’s regulatory framework for digital assets begins to take shape. FSMA 2023 explicitly brings cryptoassets within the FCA’s regulatory perimeter and creates a...more
On 7 February 2023, the Bank of England (“BofE”) and His Majesty’s Treasury (“HMT”) jointly published a consultation paper (the “Consultation Paper”) on the development of a UK central bank digital currency issued by the BofE...more
The Bank of England and HM Treasury are consulting on the model for a UK retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) or ‘digital pound’ that would sit alongside, not replace, cash. On the basis of their work to date, both the...more
September 16, 2022- The White House has released reports submitted to President Biden in response to President Biden's Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets. The reports from the U.S....more
July 26, 2022- U.S. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) today introduced the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act to simplify the use of digital assets for...more
July 12, 2022- The U.S. Department of the Treasury released a notice seeking public comment regarding potential opportunities and risks presented by developments and adoption of digital assets as part of its work under...more
July 7, 2022- The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the heads of other relevant...more