The Bank of England has launched a six-month industry pilot to test how tokenised assets could be settled in sterling using synchronised, atomic settlement linked to its next-generation real-time gross settlement system.
The Synchronisation Lab will allow 18 selected firms to experiment with delivery-versus-payment and payment-versus-payment models between the bank’s new RTGS core ledger, RT2, and external distributed-ledger platforms in a non-live environment without real money.
The central bank said the initiative is designed to validate its synchronised settlement framework, assess interoperability between central bank money and tokenised assets, and inform the potential rollout of a live RTGS synchronisation capability.
Participants include market infrastructure providers, banks, fintechs and decentralised-technology firms, with Web3 companies such as Chainlink and UAC Labs testing decentralised coordination mechanisms, while Ctrl Alt and Monee focus on tokenised gilt settlement.
Other firms including Tokenovate and Atumly will examine conditional margin payments and digital-money issuance flows aligned with RTGS processes, with Swift and LSEG also participating in the programme.
The Bank of England said insights from the lab will refine its RTGS synchronisation design and support further development work, with participants expected to present findings after the spring 2026 programme concludes.
The initiative places the UK alongside other central banks expanding tokenisation and programmable settlement pilots, including research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank for International Settlements, Singapore’s BLOOM settlement project, Australia’s wholesale digital currency trial, the UAE’s digital dirham payment and China-led mBridge’s reported $55 billion in cross-border CBDC transactions.