United Kingdom HM Treasury has published the terms of reference for Chris Woolard’s role as Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, giving him a mandate to work with industry and government to accelerate the digitalisation of UK wholesale financial markets. The role is intended to coordinate sector-wide adoption of tokenisation and other digital technologies under the Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy, alongside broader work to improve market efficiency, competitiveness and resilience. Under the remit, Woolard will establish a cross-industry taskforce spanning financial market infrastructures, investment firms, digital asset platforms, trade bodies, regulators and buy-side and sell-side participants. He is to deliver a report to the Chancellor, developed with the sector, on how UK wholesale markets should adopt tokenisation and related technologies, including priority distributed ledger technology use cases, options to build on the first Digital Gilt Instrument issuance and extend the supporting ecosystem to private sector issuance, and recommendations on interoperability between distributed ledger technology platforms and legacy infrastructure. The role also includes promoting delivery of the wider digital strategy across the sector and coordinating with the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce and the Dematerialisation Market Action Taskforce so that tokenisation work aligns with the move to T+1 settlement and the removal of paper shares. The terms set two formal milestones: an initial forward look, including plans to establish the taskforce, by July 2026, and a full report on distributed ledger technology adoption and interoperability by July 2027. The appointment runs for 18 months, with ongoing work to support implementation of the strategy across the sector and coordination with HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England.

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