UK Plan Would Add Payments Innovation to Bank of England Objectives
A proposed British Treasury mandate would make payments innovation a secondary Bank of England objective covering digital currencies and stablecoins, while preserving financial stability as the primary role.
A proposed Bank of England mandate would put payments innovation inside the central bank’s formal remit for digital finance, PYMNTS reported, while keeping financial stability as the institution’s first obligation.
The British Treasury plan would create a secondary objective covering payments technology and digital currencies, including stablecoins.
That structure would make innovation a measured part of the Bank’s regulatory work rather than a replacement for its stability mandate.
Parliament would receive an annual progress report from the Bank under the proposal.
City Minister Lucy Rigby framed the change as a way to keep regulation aligned with technology while preserving the central bank’s primary financial-stability role, a hierarchy that matters for firms seeking clearer tokenized-payment rules.
The proposal extends the previous administration’s growth agenda for financial-services oversight under Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new government.
The Financial Times separately cast the move as evidence that ministers want a more active Bank of England role in building the United Kingdom’s digital-assets hub ambitions.
Stablecoins are the immediate policy test because the Bank has been shaping rules for regulated tokens linked to the pound.
Recent steps include publishing planned stablecoin rules, abandoning proposed ownership limits on U.K. stablecoins and meeting crypto companies about the framework.
Crypto firms have criticized the Bank of England for a cautious stance on digital assets.
Traditional banks and asset managers are also examining blockchain systems, so the secondary objective would speak to payment incumbents as well as crypto-native companies.
The mandate would not turn stablecoin approval into a deregulated process.
It would put innovation into the institution’s formal objectives, then require a public yearly account of how that objective is being handled.
For payment providers, banks and digital-asset firms, the operating condition is narrower but important: pound-pegged stablecoins can expand only inside a framework the Bank of England still judges compatible with financial stability.
