Rewiring Finance: Tokenisation as a Catalyst for UK Growth

Evidence tier: A1 Evidence type: Auto-discovered official publication Source: Barclays browser-verified publication index Official publication date: 2026-07-09 Captured: 2026-07-18T16:32:06.574Z

Read time: 7 minutes

July 9 2026

This report is a joint publication by Barclays’ Group Policy Development Team and PwC. The report assesses how tokenised financial and real-world assets can drive economic growth by creating a more connected financial system in which money and assets can move together with less friction.

It evaluates the scale of the economic opportunity and identifies the action needed from policymakers, regulators and industry for the UK to capture it.

It estimates that tokenisation could unlock up to £33bn (gross) in additional GDP per annum by 2035, with two thirds of this benefit flowing beyond the financial services sector and into the wider economy.

Executive Summary

Tokenisation could be one of the most important shifts in global finance in the coming years. By enabling money and assets to be represented as digital “tokens” on shared infrastructure, it can reduce the need for chains of intermediaries, separate records, and manual reconciliations across the financial system.

This can reduce cost, increase speed and democratise access to financial products and assets, while also enabling new types of financial services.

In practice, this could transform many of the financial services that people and businesses use every day. Cross-border payments could settle in seconds rather than days. Retail investors could access hard-to-reach assets such as private markets and infrastructure projects. Small businesses could gain access to broader sources of capital. Corporate treasurers could manage liquidity and collateral more efficiently, with faster and more flexible access to funding when it is needed.

For the UK, this presents a material strategic opportunity to improve everyday financial experiences and reinforce the global competitiveness of one of the UK’s flagship industries.

More broadly, tokenisation could become a driver of economic growth by unlocking investment and lowering the cost of trade and finance.

This wider potential is not yet consistently reflected in the public debate.

While tokenisation presents a significant opportunity for the UK, capturing that opportunity is not guaranteed. Tokenised markets are already beginning to form around financial centres that have established clear policies and practical pathways to adoption.

Without clear direction and coordinated action, there is a risk that activity and liquidity concentrate elsewhere over time and may be difficult for the UK to win back.

Tokenisation also brings important risks that will need to be managed, including risks to financial stability, consumer protection and the transition from today's financial infrastructure.

This report therefore asks: what could tokenisation mean for the UK economy in the next decade, and what can policymakers do to set the foundations to realise the opportunity whilst managing the potential risks?

“Tokenisation is moving from theory to real-world application. Done well, it can improve how capital flows through the economy, supporting investment, productivity and growth. This report shows why it should be treated as a strategic priority for UK competitiveness, with game changing benefits for businesses, households and the wider economy.”

Matt Hammerstein, CEO of Barclays UK Corporate Bank

Building momentum in tokenisation

Drawing on expert interviews with Barclays practitioners and the PwC network, the strongest immediate pull for tokenisation in the UK appears to be in wholesale markets, where tokenisation can directly address frictions in settlement, liquidity management, collateral mobilisation and cross-border transactions.

While these priority use cases do not represent the full opportunity from tokenisation, they are the foundations on which a much broader UK tokenised market will depend. They are where adoption is already accelerating, where the UK has existing strengths, and where early scale would create the liquidity and confidence needed for wider applications to develop.

The UK should therefore treat them as priorities for coordinated action. The near-term priorities include:

• Cross-border and wholesale payments for businesses, supporting faster settlement and lower friction in international activity
• Treasury and liquidity management for corporates, improving cash visibility and automating liquidity optimisation across entities, currencies and jurisdictions
• Tokenised government debt, together with repo markets, facilitating greater collateral mobility, increasing capital efficiency and strengthening the foundations of tokenised capital markets
• Tokenised funds, including money market funds, reducing settlement friction and broadening access to investment products

Each of these use cases delivers benefits in their own right, but the greater value comes when they begin to connect. A digital gilt, for example, is not valuable simply because issuance or trading is digitised.

Its wider value comes from enabling the underlying asset to be usable across repo, collateral and settlement, creating a trusted sterling asset that can move through tokenised markets in real time.

This is where "interoperability" becomes critical. While an asset may be able to move instantly on a ledger, the full benefits are only realised if payments, ownership and transaction rules work together across different systems and jurisdictions.

This is also where the UK has a natural role to play. Other jurisdictions are developing their own tokenisation regimes, settlement assets and market infrastructures. The UK cannot own every platform or lead in every use case.

However, it can be a leader by acting as a trusted bridge between them. Given its long-standing role in connecting international capital flows, underpinned by trusted legal frameworks and market infrastructure, the UK is well placed to help set the standards, governance and interoperability models that allow tokenised markets to connect safely across borders.

Beyond the near-term use cases, the UK should be selective about the areas in which it chooses to lead.

Building on the Great British Tokenised Deposits (GBTD) model, the focus should be on a small number of use cases where tokenisation addresses real market frictions and where the industry is strategically important to UK competitiveness and growth.

This explicit focus would help government, regulators and industry concentrate collective attention on agreed priorities. Our assessment suggests that the UK's comparative advantage could be in corporate bonds, private markets and infrastructure finance.

The UK should also identify tangible end-to-end retail or small business use cases that can build wider confidence and demand. Examples could include trade finance, invoice finance or high-friction consumer journeys such as home improvement finance, probate or retail investments.

“The UK has a proud history as a pioneer in financial markets and in technological innovation. We’re now facing the next frontier of finance and must rise to the occasion. Leading on the tokenisation of markets critical to the UK has huge potential benefit for the economy, businesses large and small, and ultimately the way people transact, borrow, save, innovate and grow.”

James Moseley, Financial Services Partner and Digital Assets Lead at PwC UK

Estimating the size of the prize

To estimate the macroeconomic impact of tokenisation, PwC used a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model – an economy-wide simulation tool used to assess how sector changes through tokenisation affect GDP (Gross Domestic Product), trade and investment – across a subset of the use cases identified throughout the Barclays-PwC assessment.

These were government bonds, fund management, cross-border payments, trade finance, real estate and corporate bonds. These use cases were chosen because they combine near-term wholesale market opportunities with wider applications where tokenisation could reduce friction for businesses and consumers.

The modelled use cases do not necessarily capture the full opportunity but are intended to provide a directional sense of the potential economic gains. The estimates are presented in 2025 prices and represent potential gross benefits only. They do not include transition, implementation or operating costs.

The output of PwC's modelling suggests a substantial economic opportunity. If the UK is one of the leading jurisdictions for tokenisation, with adoption increasing in line with major peers across the selected use cases, annual UK economic output could increase by as much as £22bn by 2035.

The opportunity is even larger if tokenisation scales globally and the UK captures a leading share of that activity. In an upside scenario, where adoption increases further in both the UK and major partner markets such as the US and Europe, the potential increase in annual UK GDP could rise to up to £33bn annually by 2035.

To put this in context, this is broadly equivalent in scale to the total GVA of the UK advertising and marketing sector today.

The benefits are not confined to the financial services sector. Around one third of this uplift comes from higher productivity in financial services, helping to strengthen one of the UK's most important industries.

But the larger impact – around two thirds – comes from spillovers into the wider economy, including lower transaction and financing costs for businesses, increased investment in productive assets, and more efficient capital allocation.

The resulting increase in economic activity could support as much as an estimated £14bn annually in tax revenue. This is nearly three times the annual budget of the Department for Business and Trade.

These estimates must be considered alongside the risks of inaction and transition. If the UK moves too slowly, activity, liquidity, talent and investment could drift towards jurisdictions with clearer rules, stronger infrastructure and faster routes to scale. In addition, there are wider systemic risks that have not been captured in the modelling but were recognised throughout our interviews such as market fragmentation, potential deposit flight and dependence on non-UK led infrastructure or settlement assets.

Consumer and user risks will also need to be managed proactively. Poorly designed or badly explained products could create confusion and loss of trust, particularly where ownership rights, protections or routes to redress are unclear.

Because fraud and exploitation remain possible, innovation should be accompanied by clear standards, strong supervision and robust technological safeguards.

As with any major technological transition, tokenisation will create some winners and losers. Some firms will adapt quickly and benefit from new markets, lower costs and stronger client relationships, while others may face margin pressure, disintermediation or higher transition costs. But this distribution of outcomes is not fixed.

The UK’s objective should be to put the foundations in place for both incumbents and new entrants to experiment safely, prove what works and move successful applications to scale quickly.

Seizing the opportunity

No one can know exactly which use cases will scale first, how market structures will evolve, or what the final infrastructure model will look like. Therefore, the priority should be to establish a framework that gives firms the confidence to experiment and invest today, while remaining flexible enough to adapt as the technology, market demand and global standards evolve.

Interoperability should sit at the heart of that framework, and it is important for all stakeholders to have a clear and aligned view on what that word means.

Tokenised finance will not develop around a single platform, but around multiple forms of digital money, assets and market infrastructure that need to work together safely and seamlessly.

The UK's opportunity is to become a trusted connector between tokenised markets.

By first getting the foundations right domestically, the UK can then help shape how markets connect internationally. A clear framework for digital money will be essential as tokenised assets cannot settle without a trusted way to settle transactions.

Realising the potential will require concerted action from policymakers, regulators and industry and in this report, we have identified five priorities for action.

These are necessary rather than sufficient as the full prize will also depend on client demand, wider interoperability needs and the pace at which the wider market and technology develop.

Our policy recommendations

1. Set a clear direction for the UK

Publish a holistic vision for tokenisation in the UK that sets out where the UK intends to lead, clarify the desired and practical role of tokenised money within the UK ecosystem and promote the UK proposition internationally, especially within wholesale markets.

2. Build momentum in priority use cases

Focus first on markets where tokenisation is already gaining traction and where it has existing strengths that underpin its position as a global financial centre; explore conversion of selected legacy gilt stocks into digital format; create a corporate bonds delivery group; and prioritise infrastructure finance and private markets as high value, longer-term use cases.

3. Make interoperability a distinctive strength

Ensure UK markets, institutions and infrastructure are deeply connected to emerging global standards, networks and settlement corridors by working with industry to test, develop and agree on UK standards; then use those learnings to lead global progress, convening the US, EU, Hong Kong, Singapore and others to harmonise standards and connect tokenised markets.

4. Proactively address potential barriers to scaling

The UK needs some of the next generation of financial infrastructure to be built in, and connected to, its existing financial ecosystem. To achieve this, the UK should create clear incentives for incumbents and new entrants to build, migrate and scale tokenised finance in the UK: make licensing routes fast, clarify prudential treatment, proactively address downstream adoption barriers early and review frictions that discourage investment in digital asset infrastructure.

5. Connect tokenisation to the wider growth agenda

Engage other industrial strategy sectors to increase familiarity with the technology and ensure the UK's wider digital public infrastructure (including digital ID, Companies House and key asset registers) is designed to connect with tokenised markets.

Tokenisation is an opportunity to strengthen one of the UK's most important industries and build a financial system that works better for households, businesses and the whole economy. If the UK moves with ambition, it can simultaneously help shape the next generation of global financial markets while unlocking a significant opportunity for growth.

About this report

Barclays’ Group Policy Development team creates public policy thought leadership content on behalf of Barclays. Our work draws on the bank’s expertise, data and insights, and is intended to inform the design and application of public policy solutions in response to pressing economic and societal challenges.

The intended audience for this report is public policy makers and other actors engaged in shaping public policy. The report is general in nature and provided for information/educational purposes only. It does not take into account any specific investment objectives, the financial situation, or particular needs of any particular person. It is not intended for distribution, publication, or use in any jurisdiction where such distribution, publication, or use would be unlawful, nor is it aimed at any person or entity to whom it would be unlawful for them to access.

Any references to Barclays’ products and services or those of any third party are for illustrative purposes only. Nothing in this document is intended as a financial or investment recommendation, inducement, marketing of any financial service or product, offer or investment advice. Our purpose with this work is exclusively to offer a perspective on public policy challenges.

No Barclays entity nor any of its affiliates, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees or agents gives any guarantee, representation or warranty, or accepts any responsibility or liability as to the accuracy or completeness of this document or any use of, or reliance on, it by any third party. This report was prepared on the basis of information and data obtained from the sources referenced therein, in each case prior to the date hereof. The information in this document has not been independently verified by us and we do not assume any liability for any such information. All opinions and estimates are given as of the date hereof and are subject to change and we assume no obligation to update this document to reflect any such changes. The information herein is not intended to predict actual results and no assurances are given with respect thereto. These materials have not been produced by the Barclays group’s research department and do not constitute investment research or a research recommendation.

Barclays Bank UK PLC (registered in England and Wales, No. 9740322) and Barclays Bank PLC (registered in England and Wales, No. 1026167) are each authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Registered office: 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP.

©Barclays 2026

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