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123 Respondents Told the FCA and Bank of England to Move…

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The Financial Conduct Authority published Feedback Statement FS26/1 on 14 September 2026 after receiving 123 responses to its work with the Bank of England on tokenisation in wholesale financial markets. The call for input opened on 18 May and closed on 3 July. Respondents included financial firms, trade bodies, individuals, legal professionals and academics.The number matters less than the direction of the feedback. Market participants largely supported the regulators’ objectives but asked them to move beyond trials and provide a route to production, scale and permanence. That request arrives while tokenised stock products are spreading across trading platforms and crypto exchanges are combining digital assets with conventional investments through the “everything exchange” model.

What the FCA and Bank of England Published

FS26/1 summarises the responses and sets the regulators’ near-term work programme. It is not a final rulebook and does not itself convert the Digital Securities Sandbox into a permanent regime. Its main deliverable is a coordinated timetable intended to show firms when regulatory and market-infrastructure questions will be addressed.The Bank of England’s Digital Securities Sandbox allows eligible participants to issue, trade and settle securities using developing technology in a live regulated setting. It uses a staged gate structure and is scheduled to run until 8 January 2029 unless the Treasury changes that date. The stated aim is for successful models to have a route into a permanent framework.

What 123 Respondents Asked For

Respondents asked for clearer timelines, implementation milestones and a long-term model for settlement after the sandbox. They also wanted regulators to coordinate rules across issuance, trading, settlement, custody, prudential treatment and the forms of money used to complete transactions. The FCA said market participants supported moving from pilots to production and scale.That demand addresses a weakness already visible in tokenised markets. Trading interfaces can extend access while custody, settlement finality, payment rails and asset servicing remain divided across systems. FinanceFeeds recently examined how round-the-clock tokenised trading still depends on fragmented settlement infrastructure. The regulatory route out of the sandbox will therefore need to cover operating models as well as permission to use a ledger.

Post-Trade and Collateral Lead the Opportunity

Most respondents identified post-trade processing as the principal opportunity, with collateral movement mentioned most often. Tokenised collateral could move between participants more quickly, reduce reconciliations and improve the use of assets held against exposures. Buy-side respondents also highlighted tokenised money market funds as potential collateral instruments.The regulators are considering the treatment of tokenised collateral alongside settlement assets and central bank money. That work connects with live market projects such as Tradeweb’s onchain Treasury transaction and plans for an NYSE platform combining tokenised securities with onchain settlement. UK Finance has separately argued that the UK can build a leading position in securities tokenisation by concentrating on market-wide infrastructure and interoperability.Custody is another dependency. Respondents generally favoured adapting existing client-asset rules for relevant specified investment cryptoassets, with additional requirements for blockchain risks and private-key controls. The issue also affects product rights. FinanceFeeds has noted that Kraken added proxy-voting preferences for eligible xStocks holders, but token structures can still differ from direct legal ownership of the underlying shares.

The Planning Dates Are Late 2026 and First-Half 2027

The first date for UK brokers and infrastructure providers is later in 2026. The FCA said it would “develop a joint tokenisation roadmap with the Bank of England, later in 2026.” The roadmap will include target dates for work on wholesale tokenisation, including issuance and settlement, collateral treatment, central bank money, market functioning, custody and the Bank’s Digital Gilt Instrument pilot.The second date is the first half of 2027, when the FCA plans to consult on rules for safeguarding relevant specified investment cryptoassets. Firms considering custody, wallet control or tokenised-asset servicing will need to map those proposals against existing client-asset arrangements. The FCA’s parallel work on tokenised gold and possible CIS and AIF treatment shows how product classification and custody can affect market design before trading begins.

This Is Separate From the 30 September Crypto Gateway

The roadmap should not be confused with the FCA’s application window for the wider cryptoasset authorisation regime. That window opens on 30 September 2026 and closes on 28 February 2027, according to the FCA’s authorisation guidance. The broader regime is due to begin on 25 October 2027 and covers firms seeking permission for newly regulated cryptoasset activities.FS26/1 addresses wholesale securities-market infrastructure. Its practical question is how regulated tokenised instruments can progress from controlled testing into permanent issuance, trading, settlement and custody arrangements. For UK brokers, the dates to monitor are therefore the joint roadmap later this year and the RSIC safeguarding consultation in the first half of 2027. The 30 September gateway belongs to a separate authorisation track.