The chair of a new UK taskforce has said that the country could benefit from a £33 billion economic boost if it is able to accelerate plans to digitise financial markets.

Chris Woolard, who was appointed by the treasury as wholesale digital markets champion by in April, published his inaugural report to the Chancellor yesterday.

The report sets out how the UK economy could accelerate the adoption of tokenisation and “related technologies” across wholesale financial markets, a move he said could add up to £33 billion to the UK’s annual economic output by 2035.

Tokenising wholesale markets would boost the UK’s competitiveness, generating additional liquidity and revenues, securing cost and capital efficiencies, enabling innovation, and strengthening the resilience of the financial system, Woolard’s report said.

Woolard added that: “As one of the world’s largest and most international financial services markets, the UK is uniquely placed to become the global leader in wholesale market tokenisation. There is so much potential, technologically and economically, if the right actions are taken and decisions are made now to embrace and support tokenisation.”

The UK has already made strong progress in this area, the report argues, but needs to accelerate its pace due to strong international competition. The country is currently well positioned to remain at the forefront of the technology, but to do so requires a joined-up national vision spanning legal, regulatory and tax frameworks is necessary, it adds.

Banks across the globe are experimenting with tokenisation, with East and South-East Asia being a particular focal point for the technology. Last week, a UK-based Citi account was able to transfer US dollars to an account held in Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank on a US bank holiday after launching a 24/7 dollar clearing service using tokenised deposits.

Over the next 12 months, members of a new cross-industry taskforce, currently consisting of 54 firms, will work with Woolard to drive delivery of end-to-end use cases for tokenisation, initially focusing on tokenised repo.

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