Bank of England przedstawia wizję nadzoru nad stablecoinem opartym na funcie szterlingu

When the Bank of England publishes a consultation paper with a foreword by Governor Andrew Bailey, the financial services industry takes notice. The November 2025 paper on systemic sterling-denominated stablecoins is no exception — it represents the central bank's most detailed vision yet on how digital payment tokens should be regulated in the UK.

Stablecoins as Payment Infrastructure

The core premise of the bank's proposal is clear: stablecoins that become widely used for everyday payments could pose risks to UK financial stability and therefore require regulation proportionate to that risk. This is not a theoretical concern. Global stablecoin transaction volume exceeded $33 trillion in 2025, and the bank aims to manage the systemic consequences before they materialize, rather than after the fact.

What sets this proposal apart from earlier regulatory approaches is its focus on the "systemic" threshold. Non-systemic stablecoins — those not yet widely used for payments — remain under FCA supervision alone. However, once a stablecoin crosses the systemic threshold, it falls under a dual regulatory regime overseen by both the Bank of England and the FCA.

Backing Requirements

The most significant aspect of the proposal concerns how stablecoin issuers must back their tokens. The bank proposes that systemic issuers hold a portion of their backing assets in short-term UK government debt and maintain deposit accounts at the Bank of England itself. This is an extraordinary step: in practice, it brings stablecoin issuers into the same financial infrastructure that underpins traditional banking.

For users, this matters because it addresses a fundamental question that has shadowed the stablecoin market since its earliest days: if you hold a stablecoin, can you actually redeem it at face value in fiat currency? The bank's answer is to require exactly that — "stab