On 16 June 2026, HM Treasury published the Terms of Reference for the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion.
On 21 April 2026, the government appointed Chris Woolard CBE as the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion to provide market leadership and support industry progress on the development of a tokenised wholesale financial markets ecosystem, as well as to support the government’s work to deliver a more efficient and competitive financial sector.
Objectives
The Terms of Reference describe the objectives of the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion who will provide:
- Market leadership and support industry progress on the development of a tokenised wholesale financial markets ecosystem.
- Leadership to co-ordinate the sector’s wider implementation of digital as outlined in the Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy.
Deliverables
The Terms of Reference provide that the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion will:
- Establish a cross-industry taskforce, with representatives from across the market ecosystem, to provide input and support.
- Deliver a report to the Chancellor, developed with the sector, covering how UK wholesale markets can best adopt tokenisation and other related technologies, as well as how the sector and government can ensure distributed ledger technology (DLT) interoperability.
- Promote the delivery of the Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy across the sector.
- Co-ordinate with the Chairs of the other workstreams (on AST and DEMAT) as they implement their programmes to deliver T+1 and remove paper shares.
Timetable
The Terms of Reference set out a clear timetable for delivery:
- The Champion will provide an initial forward look, including plans to establish the industry taskforce, by July 2026.
- A full report on DLT adoption and interoperability will be submitted to the Chancellor by July 2027.
- The appointment will run for 18 months, with ongoing work to support implementation of the strategy across the sector.