UK Gives BoE Secondary Objective for Payment System Innovation

The UK government has announced plans to give the Bank of England a new secondary objective to support innovation in payment systems and digital money. This move aims to promote the development of sterling-denominated stablecoins, while maintaining the bank's primary focus on protecting financial stability.

City Minister Lucy Rigby highlighted the potential for tokenization and distributed ledger technology to transform financial markets, while Bank Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden emphasized that this change will further support existing efforts to maintain trust and drive innovation in UK payments.

Firms such as ClearBank and Kyriba welcomed the announcement, seeing it as a positive step towards establishing the UK as a leader in digital assets. However, OpenPayd's Iana Dimitrova cautioned that regulatory clarity and commercial viability must move together, while CoinCover's Jeremy Verba emphasized the importance of building trust through robust infrastructure.