Publicado originalmente por Bank of England el 2025-11-10
The Bank of England Outlines Its Approach to Supervising Sterling Stablecoins
El Bank of England ha propuesto un régimen regulatorio específico para las stablecoins sistémicas denominadas en libras esterlinas, un paso decisivo para los pagos digitales en el Reino Unido. Analizamos los requisitos clave y sus implicaciones para el mercado.
When the Bank of England publishes a consultation paper with a foreword by Governor Andrew Bailey, the financial services sector takes notice. The November 2025 paper on systemic sterling-denominated stablecoins is no exception: it represents the central bank's most detailed view to date on how digital payment tokens should be regulated in the United Kingdom.
Stablecoins as payment infrastructure
The central premise of the Bank's proposal is straightforward: stablecoins that become widely used for everyday payments could pose risks to the UK's financial stability and therefore require regulation proportionate to that risk. This is not a theoretical concern. Global stablecoin transaction volume surpassed $33 trillion in 2025, and the Bank is positioning itself to manage the systemic implications before they materialize, not after.
What sets this proposal apart from earlier regulatory approaches is its focus on the "systemic" threshold. Non-systemic stablecoins—those not yet widely adopted for payments—remain under the sole supervision of the FCA. But once a stablecoin crosses into systemic territory, it enters a dual regulatory regime overseen by both the Bank of England and the FCA.
The backing requirements
The most consequential aspect of the proposal concerns how stablecoin issuers must back their tokens. The Bank proposes that systemic issuers hold part of their backing assets in short-term UK government debt and maintain deposit accounts with the Bank of England itself. This is a notable development: it effectively integrates stablecoin issuers into the same financial infrastructure that underpins traditional banking.
For users, this matters because it addresses the fundamental question that has shadowed the stablecoin market since its inception: when you hold a stablecoin, can you actually redeem it for its face value in fiat currency? The Bank's answer is to require exactly that—"par value stability, a robust legal right, and the ability to always redeem at par in fiat currency."
Implications for the UK digital payments landscape
The practical implications extend far beyond stablecoin issuers themselves. If the framework succeeds in creating genuine sterling tokens, gen
Source: Bank of England