HM Treasury said on Monday that Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest and RBC Capital Markets, appointed as joint lead managers for DIGIT in October, have now been allocated specific roles covering documentation, bookbuilding, investor communications and helping investors join the digital platforms through which the bond will be available. The Bank of England has confirmed regulatory approval for a link between HSBC Orion, which will act as the issuer depository, and LSEG’s investor depository, which the Treasury called a world first and said would give investors a choice of infrastructure for accessing the pilot. DIGIT will be digitally native and short dated, issued on a platform inside the Digital Securities Sandbox with on-chain settlement and sitting outside the government’s main debt management programme, with the pilot issuance expected by the first quarter of 2027.
UK allocates bank roles for first digital gilt pilot
HM Treasury has allocated specific lead manager roles to the six banks supporting DIGIT, the UK's first digitally native government bond, and the Bank of England has approved a link between the HSBC and LSEG digital securities depositories ahead of a pilot issuance expected by the first quarter of 2027.
Why it matters: DIGIT will test distributed ledger technology in UK sovereign debt issuance, and the depository link is designed to let investors reach the bond through either platform rather than fragmenting the pilot across separate infrastructures.
Data as of HM Treasury news release of November 2, 2026, published 14:38 UTC and read in full in this run; all figures and wording are from the department's own release. Developing item.
Sources
- UK moves closer to launching first digitally native government bond - UK Government (HM Treasury) - 2026-11-02