The UK government is expanding the Bank of England’s remit with a secondary statutory objective to support innovation in payment systems and emerging digital money, including stablecoins, while financial stability remains its primary duty. Announced by HM Treasury on 27 August 2026 and due to be implemented through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, with House of Lords debate on 7 and 9 September, the Bank would report annually to Parliament on progress. City Minister Lucy Rigby said tokenisation and distributed ledger technology could transform markets and help keep the UK a global financial services leader. The change extends an existing model for central counterparties and central securities depositories to systemic payment systems using digital settlement assets. WeFi CEO Maksym Sakharov said the secondary objective overrides nothing but annual reporting may heighten scrutiny of June stablecoin rules, including a requirement that systemic issuers hold at least 30% of backing assets in non-interest-bearing central bank deposits he called critical to commercial viability. The Bank previously dropped proposed holding caps of £20,000 for individuals and £10 million for businesses in favour of a temporary £40 billion ($52.9 billion) issuance cap per systemic stablecoin. Parallel efforts include Bank of England Digital Pound Lab tests of a stablecoin alongside a simulated digital pound in cross-border trade payments and a mid-July UK-US joint statement seeking to enable stablecoins in cross-border finance and align frameworks. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has prioritised digital-finance competitiveness, and Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden welcomed stronger innovation support without compromising stability.