In a 1 October speech, Bank of England Executive Director Sasha Mills set the 2028 synchronisation service inside the Bank’s wider programme for tokenised wholesale markets. The service is intended to let transactions recorded on external platforms settle conditionally against sterling central bank money held in the Bank’s renewed RTGS system, RT2.
The 2028 date is not a new commitment. The Bank and Financial Conduct Authority first set that target publicly in May 2026 as part of their shared vision for tokenisation in UK wholesale markets. At the same time, the authorities said they were working through the Digital Securities Sandbox on live issuance and settlement and on enabling tokenised versions of eligible assets to be used as collateral at CCPs and in central-bank operations.
The programme has since moved into practical testing. The Bank’s Synchronisation Lab is being used to test how RT2 can interoperate with external ledgers, including tokenised-securities and foreign-exchange use cases. In September, the FCA also published feedback from 123 respondents to the joint tokenisation call for input. Respondents identified post-trade, and particularly collateral mobility, as one of the main opportunities. The FCA and Bank said a joint roadmap with target dates for further wholesale-tokenisation work will follow later in 2026.
Synchronisation itself is a two-stage process. Funds in RT2 and assets on an external ledger can first be earmarked and locked. Once the required conditions are met, both legs are released so the transaction can settle atomically. That gives tokenised platforms a route to delivery-versus-payment in central bank money without requiring the asset and cash records to sit on the same ledger.
FMI WORLD analysis: The significance lies less in tokenising the security than in solving the infrastructure around it. A tokenised bond or equity can only scale as part of wholesale-market infrastructure if the cash leg, settlement finality, legal framework and interoperability with existing systems are equally robust.
Central bank money remains important because it removes settlement-bank credit exposure from the cash leg and provides the monetary anchor used by systemic wholesale markets. The Bank has repeatedly said it has a low risk appetite for a significant migration away from central bank money in securities settlement, even as it explores how tokenised deposits, stablecoins and other private settlement assets may coexist with it.
The synchronisation model is therefore a bridge rather than a wholesale replacement of existing FMI. A security may sit on an external programmable ledger while the sterling payment remains in RT2, with the two movements coordinated atomically. That could let new tokenised platforms use digital-asset functionality while retaining central-bank-money settlement and established standards of finality.
It also leaves important existing FMI functions intact. Mills stressed that tokenisation does not remove the value of central clearing, while the Digital Securities Sandbox is being used to test how CSD regulation, settlement finality and financial-collateral law should apply as new structures move towards permanent operation.
The 2028 target therefore matters as a planning anchor for venues, CSDs, CCPs, settlement banks, custodians and technology providers. It is not evidence that a live production service exists today.
Digital Securities Sandbox entrants; prospective Digital Securities Depositories and tokenised trading venues; CSDs and CCPs; settlement banks; custodians; broker-dealers and asset managers; collateral and treasury teams; RTGS participants; and technology providers building ledgers or orchestration services for UK wholesale markets.
Watch the joint Bank of England–FCA tokenisation roadmap due later in 2026; the design and participation model emerging from the Synchronisation Lab; the permanent Digital Securities Sandbox regime; the legal treatment of settlement finality and financial collateral; eligibility and risk treatment for private settlement assets; RTGS operating-hours changes; and the first production use cases that demonstrate atomic settlement between an external tokenised ledger and central bank money.
Verification boundary: The Bank has reaffirmed a live synchronisation-service target for 2028 and is testing the design. The target was first announced in May 2026. No production synchronisation service is live today, and the final operator model, permanent DSS framework and detailed tokenisation roadmap remain under development.
Primary sources — Bank of England, Sasha Mills, 1 October 2026; Bank of England / FCA shared vision, 18 May 2026; Bank of England synchronisation explainer; FCA tokenisation feedback statement, 14 September 2026.
FMI WORLD NEWSROOM story reference: FMIWT-20261002-002.