Bank of England gets new remit to back payment innovation

The Treasury wants to hand the Bank of England a new secondary objective: supporting innovation in payment systems and emerging forms of digital money, including stablecoins. For fleets, this is the early groundwork for how tomorrow's fuel cards, invoicing rails and settlement systems might work - not an immediate change to your terminal, but a signal of where the plumbing is heading. (HM Treasury)

The new objective sits below the Bank's primary financial stability duty and mirrors a similar innovation remit already given for its regulation of central counterparties and securities depositories under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023. The Bank will report on progress annually. City Minister Lucy Rigby pointed to tokenisation and distributed ledger technology as having the potential to transform financial markets, while Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden welcomed the move. The change is expected via amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, next debated in the Lords on 7 and 9 September. (HM Treasury)

Why this matters: This is a regulatory settings change, not a product launch, but it opens the door to stablecoin-based settlement systems the Bank now has an explicit remit to help develop. Fleets running large fuel card or leasing invoicing volumes should ask their card and payment providers directly whether any stablecoin or tokenised settlement pilots are on their roadmap, and revisit the question once the Bill clears the Lords.