Thirty nine US state banking associations announced on 25 August 2026 the formation of BankChain Alliance, an industry consortium set to build a bank owned blockchain network intended to go live in 2027, supporting tokenised deposits, bank issued stablecoins, smart payment tools and automated settle

For UK founders and investors watching which model wins the tokenisation infrastructure race, this week's confirmation from one of the world's largest custodian banks is a bigger signal than another platform launch.

Ten of Europe's largest financial institutions switched on a shared blockchain network for regulated markets on 28 July, and a UK bank is already circling the door.

A quieter but structurally important piece of tokenisation news broke this week away from the equity headlines. Two infrastructure providers proved that digital assets, stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits can now settle against each other automatically, without the manual reconciliation that has

Bank of America has appointed Sonali Theisen as head of its global digital assets platform, alongside Adam Dixon as global head of digital asset transformation and Kevin Milsom as head of platforms AI transformation, according to Bloomberg reporting confirmed across multiple outlets on 17 and 18 Jul

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Crypto and Digital Assets opened a cross party inquiry on 21 July into UK banks refusing accounts and restricting payments to cryptocurrency and digital asset businesses, giving the sector a six week window to put hard evidence behind a complaint it has made inf

Structured products are a mainstay of Asian wealth portfolios, and HSBC is one of the region's largest issuers of them. That makes the efficiency case unusually strong. Popular products such as autocallables and equity linked notes have busy lifecycles, with observation dates, coupon triggers and early redemption events that are currently tracked and reconciled separately by the issuer, paying agents and distributors. A digitally native note makes the token itself the single

One of Britain's best known fintech names is trimming its workforce, and the reason it gives says a good deal about where the sector is heading. Starling Bank is cutting about 130 jobs, roughly three per cent of a workforce of more than 4,000 people, as it restructures its banking and technology tea

A checkout button is not usually the stuff of strategy memos. This one is worth a pause.

The backers include HSBC, BNP Paribas and Citadel Securities, a sign that the institutions which run capital markets now want to own the rails underneath them.

On the same day that two giants of market infrastructure moved deeper into digital assets, a Spanish wholesale custodian quietly switched on crypto custody for other banks. On its own it is a modest announcement. As part of a pattern, it is the story.

The institutional custody race in digital assets has a significant new entrant. Laser Digital, the digital asset subsidiary of Japanese banking group Nomura, has received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Laser Digital National Trust Bank, a de n

For years, the stablecoin market has been a dollar story. Of the $305 billion in stablecoins in circulation as of January 2026, over 99% are denominated in US dollars. That asymmetry is not just a currency statistic — it is a structural risk for European financial markets, a competitive disadvantage for EU-based institutions, and a potential sovereignty problem for European regulators. A consortium of twelve of Europe's largest banks just decided to do something about it

Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Nationwide, Santander, and Monzo are all involved in building tokenised banking infrastructure. This is not a crypto experiment. It is the financial system founders already use, being upgraded from the inside. When most founders hear the word tokenisation, they think of raising money. A token that represents shares in their company, issued through a regulated platform, distributed to investors. That is one part of the tokenisation story, and i

The UK’s biggest banks are quietly transforming the financial system that startup founders rely on. Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Nationwide, Santander, and Monzo are all involved in building tokenised banking infrastructure. This is not a crypto experiment or a speculative venture. It is the existing financial system being upgraded from within, using digital tokens to represent traditional assets like sterling deposits. Many founders associate tokenisation with fundrai

Monument Bank, a Bank of England-regulated institution serving the UK’s mass-affluent market, has announced plans to tokenise up to £250 million in retail customer deposits on Cardano’s privacy-focused Midnight network, making it the first UK-regulated bank to bring retail deposits onto a public blockchain.