The UK’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, Chris Woolard CBE, has published his first report to the Treasury, setting out a 12-month roadmap for accelerating the development of tokenised wholesale markets.
The roadmap will focus on nine priority areas, starting with an end-to-end repo transaction to test whether tokenised assets can be traded, used as collateral and settled efficiently across digital and existing infrastructure.
The Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) Pilot should be judged in the same way as repo, says Richard Baker, CEO and Founder of Tokenovate (one of 54 institutions on the task force for the nine areas): its success will depend on what comes after issuance, including its ability to support secondary trading, repo and collateral use, and attract institutional liquidity.
Baker also argues that shared standards — a Common Domain Model — will be essential, but must be supported by orchestration across institutions, ledgers and payment rails to avoid creating a new set of digital silos.
The report also calls for clarity of legal frameworks on settlement finality, collateral treatment and custody.
