Lloyds Survey: 71% of UK Finance Leaders Expect Tokenization Shift

A Lloyds Banking Group survey of 100 senior UK financial decision-makers found that 71% expect tokenization to fundamentally reshape how financial services operate, according to Blockonomi. The poll covered executives at British banks, insurers, asset managers and financial sponsors as part of the lender’s tenth annual Financial Institutions Sentiment Survey.

Faster payment processing and settlement cycles was the most cited benefit, named by 60% of those surveyed, while 41% pointed to improved collateral optimization and liquidity management. Rob Hale, co-head of global markets at Lloyds, said the priority now is moving from standalone use cases to infrastructure that operates at scale, with the interoperability and shared standards needed to connect digital and traditional markets.

Key facts

• 71% of the 100 UK financial executives surveyed expect tokenization to fundamentally reshape financial services.
• 60% ranked accelerated payments and settlement as the top benefit; 41% cited collateral and liquidity management.
• 77% of participants now treat emerging technology investment as a strategic growth priority, up from 41% in 2025.
• Lloyds settled $750,000 in payment obligations with Visa using USDC in a week-long trial, with funds reaching Visa in under an hour.
• A government-backed task force projected tokenized finance leadership could add up to 33 billion pounds ($44 billion) to UK annual economic output by 2035.

Testing has moved past the pilot stage

Lloyds has run live experiments rather than paper exercises. Earlier this year the bank worked with Archax and Canton Network on what it described as the UK’s first public blockchain transaction using tokenized deposits to buy a tokenized UK government bond. In the more recent Visa trial, Lloyds operated its own node on the Canton Network while Visa settled on a separate public blockchain, a setup designed to test interoperability without forcing both parties onto the same infrastructure.

Peter Left, Lloyds’ head of digital assets, said handling real funds let the bank judge how the technology behaved under genuine operating conditions. Separately, UK Finance coordinated interbank testing involving Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays and HSBC, covering two residential mortgage refinancings and a simulated e-commerce purchase. In the mortgage cases, funds stayed locked for the duration of the property transaction and released automatically on completion.

Policy and cross-border work run in parallel

The Bank of England proposed moving its settlement infrastructure toward near-24/7 availability in May, and a government payments blueprint called for tokenized and traditional money to work inside one interoperable system. Cointelegraph reported that a July government-backed task force put the economic prize at as much as 33 billion pounds ($44 billion) a year by 2035, in line with Blockonomi’s $44 billion figure, and called for a first tokenized UK government bond by early 2027. Blockonomi added that the same analysis recommended completing an end-to-end tokenized repurchase agreement by spring 2027.

Coordination with Washington has also advanced. Cointelegraph reported that the US and UK treasuries recommended creating a private-sector group to test cross-border uses of tokenized assets and urged US financial regulators and the Bank of England to identify shared regulatory approaches. Blockonomi reported the August recommendation framed this as year-long testing, with the SEC, CFTC and Bank of England assessing coordinated settlement systems and whether stablecoins and tokenized investment funds could serve as acceptable collateral.

Why it matters

Tokenized deposits, bonds and funds would change how collateral moves and how quickly obligations clear, affecting banks, asset managers and the corporate treasurers who hold their cash. The direction of travel is also visible in internal priorities: the share of executives treating technology investment as a growth priority nearly doubled from 41% in 2025 to 77% now, suggesting tokenization has shifted from a research item to a budget line.

What to watch

The task force call for a first tokenized UK sovereign bond by early 2027 and a completed end-to-end tokenized repurchase agreement by spring 2027 are the next concrete milestones. The joint UK-US working group’s findings on cross-border settlement and collateral eligibility will also shape how far banks can push live usage.

Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.

Sources: Blockonomi, Cointelegraph