UK to Appoint Digital Markets Champion for Financial Tokenization Push

The UK Treasury is creating a dedicated 'digital markets champion' role to accelerate blockchain adoption in wholesale finance. Economic Secretary Lucy Rigby revealed the position during London's Digital Assets Week conference, framing it as a key step in implementing the government's digital strategy for financial markets.

A new Dematerialisation Market Action Taskforce will spearhead the phase-out of paper share certificates. The initiative builds on July's Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy, which includes plans for blockchain-based sovereign debt instruments under the DIGIT framework.

Procurement has begun for technology providers to issue digital gilts - distributed ledger representations of UK sovereign debt. The approach mirrors growing institutional interest in tokenizing traditional financial assets.