UK Treasury picks six banks for digital gilt pilot launching in early 2027
CIE News ·
HM Treasury selected Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, and RBC Capital Markets to lead its upcoming digital gilt issuance on HSBC Orion.
HM Treasury selected six banks to manage the issuance of its first digital sovereign bond, crypto.news reported on October 6, 2026. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, and RBC Capital Markets were named joint lead managers for the Digital Gilt Instrument, known as DIGIT. Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby announced the selection at UK Digital Assets Week, confirming that the institutions will provide underwriting services and distribute the short-dated bond.
The issuance is scheduled for the first quarter of 2027 within the UK Digital Securities Sandbox, which operates under oversight from the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England. The digital bond will run on HSBC's Orion distributed ledger technology platform with onchain settlement, separate from the primary government debt management program.
Rigby stated that the government intends to list DIGIT on the London Stock Exchange Group's main market. The pilot serves as a test of financial market infrastructure to evaluate whether distributed ledger technology can reduce reconciliation tasks and lower operating costs, crypto.news reported.