HM Treasury unveiled a comprehensive payment services regulatory integration plan on 21 April 2026 — during UK Fintech Week — designed to bring stablecoins, tokenised bank deposits, and conventional electronic payments under one coherent legal roof. The package proposes new legislation to reduce administrative burdens for firms seeking to provide stablecoin payment services, whilst expanding the FCA's regulatory powers over Open Banking developments.

The tokenisation of real-world assets (RWA) is often associated with the dry mechanics of private credit, real estate, and treasuries. But on 21 April 2026, Novarra — a global institutional tokenisation platform — announced an expansion that brings the technology into a much more narrative-driven arena: professional sports. The company is launching a dedicated infrastructure to enable the tokenisation of future revenue streams for athletes, sports organisations, and collegiat

Plume employees can now elect to receive a portion of their monthly salary in shares of WisdomTree's WTGXX, a tokenised, SEC-regulated money market fund that currently yields around 4–5% annually.

There is a number that keeps moving faster than most people expected: $27.6 billion. That is the total value of tokenised real-world assets on-chain as of April 2026, up from $8.4 billion a year ago — a 300% surge year-on-year, occurring not in a crypto bull market fuelled by retail speculation, but driven overwhelmingly by institutional capital.

If you follow financial press or crypto media coverage of tokenised equity, two dominant framings emerge. One treats tokenisation as an inevitability already underway, written for an audience of institutional practitioners. The other treats it as a speculative frontier, written for an audience of digital asset natives. Neither reads as though UK founders are the intended audience, because, largely, they are not. So when we opened a short poll last week asking UK founders a

Lise received authorisation from French regulator AMF in late 2025, becoming the first institution in Europe licensed to operate a fully tokenised equity exchange. Unlike hybrid models that tokenise existing securities while keeping legacy infrastructure in place, Lise has built a single on-chain system that combines issuance, trading, settlement, and share registry. There is no parallel paper record, no T+2 clearing cycle, no intermediary custodian between the exchange and t

This month, something changed. Republic Europe — formerly known as Seedrs, one of the UK's most established equity crowdfunding platforms, has partnered with the London Stock Exchange to offer access to PISCES: the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System. It is a clunky acronym for something genuinely significant.

Real-world asset tokenisation has moved well beyond the proof-of-concept stage. With over $27 billion in tokenised value on-chain and the world's largest financial institutions deploying real capital, 2026 is the year the market stopped asking whether this works and started asking how fast it scales.

Is Tokenisation Safe, Legal, and Can Anyone Get Ripped Off? Founders Are Asking. The Answers Are More Complicated Than the Platforms Let On.

What Is Being Said, and By Whom On 2 April 2026, the International Monetary Fund published a note describing tokenisation as a fundamental reconfiguration of financial architecture, not an incremental improvement to existing systems. At Davos in January, BlackRock's Larry Fink told the World Economic Forum that tokenisation is necessary and that markets need to move rapidly. In a survey published in March by Funds Europe and CACEIS, more than 60 per cent of asset managers sa

The Old Infrastructure Is Building the New One. That Is the Point. Two pieces of market structure news from the same week, neither individually dramatic, together illustrate something important about how tokenisation actually enters the financial mainstream. What Happened On 31 March 2026, DTCC launched a new business line, DTCC Digital Asset Solutions, with a mandate to tokenise assets currently held in custody by its depository arm, DTC. On the same day, Apex Group anno

The most consistent objection from traditional banks to adopting stablecoin infrastructure has been this: "We don't want to hold crypto." On April 8, 2026, Circle answered that objection directly. Circle Payments Network (CPN) Managed Payments is a full-stack stablecoin settlement platform that allows banks, payment service providers (PSPs), and fintechs to settle transactions in USDC — without ever holding or managing digital assets themselves. Circle handles the entire d

The world of digital assets has seen rapid growth over the past decade, attracting a wide range of investors from retail traders to large institutions. Yet, this growth has not come without challenges. One of the most significant factors shaping investor behaviour in this space is regulatory change. As governments and regulatory bodies around the world adjust their stance on digital assets, investor adoption patterns shift accordingly. Understanding how regulatory changes inf

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 financial services industry has witnessed a dramatic shift in technology adoption over the past year. Artificial intelligence (AI) moved from experimental pilots to widespread operational use in 80% of firms surveyed by Broadridge. Now, many of these firms are turning their attention to tokenisation as the next major infrastructure change. But is tokenisation truly the next frontier after AI? This post explores recent research findings, the reasons behind this shift, and

UK Investors Left Out as Fundrise and Kraken Launch Onchain VCX Fund for Global Access. The tokenisation of venture capital funds is reshaping how investors access private markets. Recently, Fundrise and Kraken’s xStocks platform introduced an onchain version of the Fundrise Innovation Fund (NYSE: VCX), enabling global investors to trade a token representing shares in this venture capital vehicle. This development marks a significant milestone in the integration of traditiona

On 2 April 2026, the International Monetary Fund published a formal note arguing that tokenisation is not an incremental improvement to financial infrastructure but a fundamental change in how trust, settlement, and risk management operate across the global system. That is worth pausing on. What the IMF Actually Said The note, entitled Tokenized Finance, was authored by Tobias Adrian, the IMF's Financial Counsellor and Director of its Monetary and Capital Markets Depar

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

US Congress Decided Tokenisation Is Inevitable - Now Comes the Hard Part.

Understanding Token Ownership in Digital Equity: Insights from the UKJT Report. Tokenised equity is reshaping how companies raise capital and how investors hold shares. Yet, a pressing question remains: if something goes wrong, who actually owns the token? This article explores the key insights from that report and what founders and investors need to understand about token ownership under English law.