ChainThink report, July 15: According to CoinDesk, the UK plans to issue its first digital sovereign bond in early 2027, potentially becoming the first G7 nation to place government debt on a distributed ledger infrastructure.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the initiative during her annual Mansion House speech, stating that additional issuances will follow after the initial launch.

The Digital UK Government Bond instrument (DIGIT) will be denominated in GBP, issued on HSBC’s Orion blockchain platform, and operated within the Bank of England and FCA’s Digital Securities Sandbox.

The UK Treasury launched this pilot program in 2024, aiming to test whether blockchain infrastructure can shorten settlement times, reduce reconciliation workloads, and lower operational costs.

HSBC was appointed to operate the platform in February this year, having previously issued over $3.5 billion in digital bonds via the Orion blockchain.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey stated that the Bank will work to designate DIGIT as eligible collateral for its market operations, supporting tokenized repurchase agreements and enabling banks to use the bond in central bank funding transactions.

Currently, the UK Treasury has not disclosed details such as issuance size, maturity, coupon rate, investor eligibility, or settlement assets; the inaugural issuance will not be included in the government’s regular UK government bond financing program.