Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her department has made an assessment of the benefits of tokenised financial infrastructure.

Using distributed ledger technology to tokenise assets could deliver a step change in financial market efficiency, particularly by enabling more efficient, real-time data sharing which could lower operational costs and enhance resilience.

It is important that the government works with the financial services regulators and the sector to understand and deliver these benefits. That is why the government has published its Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy and why it has taken forward the Digital Securities Sandbox which will facilitate the issuance, trading and settlement of tokenised securities in the UK on distributed ledgers. It is also taking forward other initiatives such as the Digital Gilt Instrument, or ‘DIGIT’, which will help demonstrate the benefits of these new technologies.