HM Treasury appoints six Joint Lead Managers for DIGIT, the UK's first digitally native government bond, targeting Q1 2027 pilot issuance

HM Treasury announced on 6 October 2026 that Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, and RBC Capital Markets have been appointed as Joint Lead Managers (JLMs) for the pilot issuance of the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT), the UK's first digitally native sovereign bond. The announcement was made by Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby KC MP at UK Digital Assets Week. The six JLMs were selected through a competitive procurement process evaluated against transparent and objective criteria. Their role will cover traditional lead manager functions including underwriting, investor engagement, and distribution on issuance day. The DIGIT pilot, expected to take place by Q1 2027, will test how distributed ledger technology (DLT), a decentralised record-keeping system underpinning blockchain, can be applied across the full issuance and lifecycle of a sovereign bond. DIGIT is designed to be digitally native and short-dated, issued on a platform operating within the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), with on-chain settlement. It sits outside the government's main debt management programme and is explicitly a technology pilot rather than a change to core gilt issuance. Today's appointment follows the selection of HSBC as DLT supplier in February 2026, and a July 2026 memorandum of understanding between HSBC and LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) to deliver a bilateral Digital Securities Depository link. The government frames DIGIT as central to its strategy to keep the UK competitive as distributed ledger technology reshapes wholesale financial markets.

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