UK Hands Bank of England Mandate to Promote Stablecoin Innovation

The UK government has announced plans to give the Bank of England a new statutory duty to support innovation in payment systems and emerging forms of digital money, including stablecoins.

The new mandate will require the central bank to actively promote innovation in payment systems and stablecoins as a secondary objective, just beneath its primary responsibility to protect UK financial stability.

The move aims to capture a share of the $308 billion global market for stablecoins, with the Bank of England's Deputy Governor for Financial Stability, Sarah Breeden, welcoming the change as 'further support' for the Bank's efforts to maintain trust and drive innovation in UK payments.

The new duty will sit alongside the Bank's existing responsibility to regulate Central Counterparties (CCPs) and Central Securities Depositories (CSDs), with a focus on digital settlement assets, including stablecoins and tokenised deposits.