The Bank of England is proposing to extend its wholesale settlement infrastructure to near 24/7 operation, working with the Financial Conduct Authority to prepare UK markets for tokenized finance. Cointelegraph surfaced the proposal in a post dated May 19, 2026, citing the central bank's own communications.
The move targets the Real-Time Gross Settlement system, the rails that clear central bank money between commercial banks. Today the system runs on a defined business-hours window aligned with London trading. Tokenized assets, which can theoretically transfer at any hour on public or permissioned chains, expose the gap between programmable settlement and the legacy clearing cycle.
The gap the BoE is closing
Wholesale tokenization has moved faster than the underlying settlement plumbing. HSBC, BlackRock, JPMorgan, and a list of smaller issuers have all run live experiments with tokenized money market funds, bonds, or repo. Each one runs into the same wall: the tokenized asset settles in seconds on-chain, but the cash leg still waits for an RTGS window.
The BoE proposal would not eliminate that gap entirely. Near 24/7 is not 24/7. There will still be maintenance windows, end-of-day batch processes, and a closing position for accounting purposes. But the shift from roughly 13 hours a day on weekdays to something close to continuous operation is the largest structural change to UK wholesale settlement since RTGS launched in 1996.
FCA's parallel track
The FCA is not separately running the infrastructure side, but its role is what makes the proposal more than a plumbing upgrade. Tokenized wholesale instruments need legal certainty: when does title transfer, who is the holder of record at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, and how does English law treat a smart-contract-driven repo unwind on a public holiday.
The joint nature of the proposal signals that the UK is trying to answer those questions inside one coordinated framework rather than letting them lag behind the technology. Singapore's Project Guardian, the Swiss SIX digital exchange, and the ECB's exploratory DLT settlement trials are the comparable peer programmes. The UK has been behind on policy clarity around tokenized finance for the better part of two years, and this is the most concrete step yet.
Market context, as of May 19, 2026
The proposal lands during a soft week for crypto markets. Bitcoin trades at $77,012, up 0.2% on the day but down 4.9% on the week, and the Fear & Greed Index sits at 40 in Neutral territory. Ether is at $2,137, down 7.2% over seven days. The reaction to the BoE post itself was muted on token prices, which is what you would expect: this is a wholesale-finance and policy signal, not a retail-flow catalyst.
The longer-term implication is different. If sterling can clear continuously, tokenized issuance denominated in pounds becomes materially more competitive against dollar-denominated tokenized treasuries, which already dominate the segment. A London-based tokenized bond that settles in central bank money on a Saturday afternoon is a product that does not currently exist in any major jurisdiction.
Who is affected first
Commercial banks operating in the UK will carry most of the operational load. Their treasury, settlements, and operations teams are staffed around current RTGS hours. Moving to near 24/7 means shift coverage, automated reconciliation, and new monitoring stacks. Mid-tier banks without that infrastructure may need to outsource or partner.
Tokenization platforms and stablecoin issuers benefit second-order. Continuous central bank settlement narrows the case for private stablecoins as the cash leg of wholesale tokenized trades, at least within the UK. That is a real shift in the competitive map for institutional rails, even if retail stablecoin use is unaffected.
End users on the retail side, including crypto card holders and consumer wallet users, will not see anything change at the point of purchase. Card networks already settle on T+1 or T+2 schedules abstracted from the underlying interbank cycle. The change matters at the institutional layer, where tokenized money market funds and bond settlement currently break down on weekends.
Open questions
The proposal is at the consultation stage. The BoE has not committed to a launch date, has not specified the maintenance window length, and has not addressed how the change interacts with cross-border CHAPS payments where counterparty jurisdictions still run business-hours settlement.
There is also the cost question. Running RTGS continuously is not free. Whether the BoE absorbs that cost, recovers it via tariff changes on participating banks, or restricts continuous access to a tokenization-specific service line is one of the variables to watch in the consultation response.
Overview
The Bank of England and FCA have proposed extending UK wholesale settlement to near 24/7 operation to support tokenized finance, the largest structural change to RTGS since 1996. Source basis is a Cointelegraph post citing the BoE on May 19, 2026. The change targets the cash leg of tokenized wholesale trades and would position sterling as a credible base currency for continuously-settled tokenized issuance, narrowing the case for private stablecoins in that role. Retail crypto card users will not see direct impact at point of sale.
