At Mansion House in 2025, the government said DIGIT would be accessible to a wide range of users and supported the development of secondary markets.
The UK government has chosen HSBC as the platform provider for its Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot following a competitive selection process.
Announced today (12 February), the Treasury has deemed this a "step forward" for the government's Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy.
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At Mansion House in 2025, the government said DIGIT would be accessible to a wide range of users and support the development of secondary markets.
The pilot's goals are to allow the government to explore how distributed ledger technology (DLT) can be applied to sovereign debt issuance purposes and to boost the development of UK-based DLT infrastructure. It also seeks to bolster DLT adoption across UK financial markets.
Lucy Rigby, economic secretary to the Treasury, stated that this move was "exactly the kind of financial innovation we need to keep the UK at the forefront of global capital markets".
She added: "We want to attract investment and make the UK the best place to do business, which is why we are launching DIGIT to understand how the UK can capitalise on this technology, deliver efficiencies and reduce costs for firms."
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Richard Baker, CEO and founder of Tokenovate, stated that "this move from concept to procurement underlines Britain's ambition to lead in next-generation financial market infrastructure".
However, he warned that "legal certainty, interoperability and programmable settlement from issuance through maturity will be critical to delivering meaningful market impact".
"Otherwise, there is a risk this becomes just ‘a bond on blockchain', rather than a bond that works seamlessly across existing market infrastructure and participants," Baker explained.
