UK national digital asset strategy framework

The UK House of Lords voted 194–138 to add an amendment requiring the Treasury to prepare, publish and consult on a national digital asset strategy within 12 months of the Financial Services and Markets Bill receiving Royal Assent. Added as Clause 50 during the bill’s Report Stage, the measure covers cryptoassets, qualifying stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, tokenized securities and other tokenized or digital financial products. The strategy is charged with addressing innovation, consumer protection, market integrity, financial stability and the UK’s international competitiveness while examining firms’ access to banking, payment and settlement services.

Under the clause, Treasury officials must assess how digital asset businesses operate under current UK legal and market conditions and consider whether banks or payment providers deny services through blanket policies that fail to account for individual risk. The drafting requires consultation with the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority and industry groups, and it allows the Treasury to involve additional parties when appropriate. The amendment also empowers the Treasury to identify legislative or regulatory changes after reviewing how current and planned rules work together.

Support for the change came largely from Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers and produced a 56-vote majority in the Lords, while the governing party opposed it on the basis that existing programmes and cross-sector initiatives already cover crypto regulation, tokenization and wholesale market digitization. The bill must still pass the House of Commons, where MPs can accept, amend or remove the clause; only after both Houses agree and the bill receives Royal Assent will the 12-month deadline begin. The amendment also instructs the Treasury to consider developments in other jurisdictions when preparing the strategy.