BOE Gets Innovation Mandate to Boost Digital Finance in UK
The UK government plans to give the Bank of England (BOE) a new mandate that encourages innovation in digital money and payments. The Treasury will add 'promoting innovation' as a secondary objective to the BOE's regulation of payment systems, alongside its primary goal of financial stability.
Emma Reynolds, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, emphasized that financial stability would remain the top priority for the Bank of England. She stated that the new secondary objective would help drive innovation in payments and digital finance, supporting the UK's position as a global leader in financial services.
The UK government is paying attention to tokenization and distributed ledger technology (DLT), which underlies crypto assets. Reynolds noted that these technologies have the potential to reshape global financial markets.