UK Tokenization Report Names Ripple in Wholesale Markets Plan

A U.K. Treasury-backed report on wholesale digital markets has cited Ripple as part of the country’s push to bring tokenized repo, fixed income and funds into live markets. The report, led by Chris Woolard, the Treasury’s wholesale digital markets champion, lays out a 12-month plan to move those areas beyond sandbox testing.

The development matters because the report frames tokenization as a competitive issue for the U.K., warning that the country could lose ground if market standards and liquidity form elsewhere first. Woolard’s team said productivity and cost-efficiency gains could add 33 billion pounds, or about $44 billion, to annual economic output and increase tax receipts by 14 billion pounds a year within a decade.

The report supports a hybrid model in which permissionless networks provide shared liquidity while permissioned institutional networks operate on top. It cited BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money market fund on Ethereum, with Securitize handling compliance, as an example of that structure.

At the same time, the report noted a key risk for public blockchains: chain reorganizations can theoretically reverse confirmed transactions, creating settlement-finality concerns that traditional market infrastructure does not face. That risk remains part of the policy debate as institutions test blockchain-based settlement models.

Ripple was also cited as an example of convergence between traditional finance and crypto-native infrastructure. The report pointed to Ripple’s $1.25 billion acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road, now Ripple Prime, and Santander U.K.’s white-label use of Ripple’s blockchain technology for cross-border payments.