HM Treasury used Chancellor Rachel Reeves' Mansion House speech to publish the recommendations of the Transatlantic Taskforce on Markets of the Future and an update on the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, while signaling that the UK is set to become the first G7 country to issue a Digital Sovereign Bond by early next year. The speech presented these steps as part of a broader agenda to modernise financial markets, expand digital finance and support growth across the wider economy. On market innovation, the Great British Tokenised Deposit initiative is moving to pilot transactions, and UK businesses can access new artificial intelligence payment tools as Mastercard launches agentic payments in the UK before the rest of Europe. Reeves also reviewed wider financing measures, including proposals to change ring-fencing rules and the Financial Policy Committee's review of bank capital requirements, which the speech said could support up to GBP 150bn of additional lending, with Nationwide committing GBP 40bn in mortgages and lending to small and medium-sized enterprises. The speech further pointed to measures to expand SME finance through a new UK Export Finance guarantee scheme and an enlarged British Business Bank Growth Guarantee Scheme, which will support GBP 3.5bn of lending a year and increase the number of supported businesses to 20,000. The first Digital Sovereign Bond issuance is planned for early next year, with further issuance envisaged after that.

Original source Back to tracker