Key Points
- 71% of senior decision-makers at major UK financial institutions expect tokenisation to reshape the future of financial services, according to Lloyds Banking Group’s tenth annual Financial Institutions Sentiment Survey.
- The survey covered 100 senior decision-makers from UK banks, insurers, financial sponsors, and asset and wealth managers.
- 60% of respondents identified faster payments and settlement as the biggest opportunity associated with tokenisation.
- 41% cited collateral and liquidity management as another major potential benefit.
- Investment in new and emerging technologies has become a significantly greater priority, with 77% of institutions identifying it as a growth priority, compared with 41% in 2025.
- 64% of respondents plan to increase capital expenditure over the next 12 months, according to Lloyds.
- Respondents also identified modernising financial and market infrastructure as one of the UK’s major economic opportunities over the coming year.
- Lloyds executives Lisa Francis and Rob Hale said the next stage for tokenisation will involve moving individual use cases towards infrastructure that can operate at scale.
- Lloyds has already worked with Archax and the Canton Network on a public blockchain transaction involving tokenised deposits and a tokenised gilt.
- The findings come amid wider activity by major UK banks to test tokenised deposits, including recent interbank transactions involving Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays and HSBC.
The latest Lloyds survey indicates that tokenisation has moved higher on the strategic agenda for major UK financial institutions, with 71% of surveyed senior decision-makers expecting the technology to reshape how money and assets move through financial markets. The findings point to faster settlement, improved collateral and liquidity management, and modernised financial infrastructure as key areas of interest, while also showing a broader increase in technology investment across the sector. However, the survey measures institutional expectations rather than proving that tokenised financial markets have already reached widespread production use.
What did the Lloyds survey reveal about tokenisation in UK financial services?
Lloyds Banking Group’s tenth annual Financial Institutions Sentiment Survey provides a snapshot of how senior leaders across the UK’s financial sector view emerging technologies and the future direction of financial services.
According to Lloyds’ announcement published on 2 October 2026, 100 senior decision-makers from some of the UK’s largest banks, insurers, financial sponsors, and asset and wealth managers took part in the survey. The research found that 71% expect tokenisation to reshape the future of financial services.
Finextra’s editorial report on the survey similarly stated that the research was conducted between April and May 2026 and that 71% of respondents expected tokenisation to transform the way money and assets move through the financial system. Finextra described its report as content selected, created and edited by its editorial team rather than attributing the article to an individual named journalist.
The finding is significant because it relates tokenisation not simply to digital assets as an investment theme, but to the underlying infrastructure through which financial institutions transfer money, securities and collateral.
Tokenisation generally involves representing assets such as cash, bonds or funds digitally on blockchain-based infrastructure. Lloyds said this can enable assets to be transferred more efficiently while retaining the protections and safeguards associated with traditional financial assets.
Why are faster payments and settlement important to financial institutions?
The survey found that faster payments and settlement were the most frequently identified benefit of tokenisation.
According to Lloyds, 60% of respondents selected faster payments and settlement when asked about the key benefits of the technology. A further 41% identified collateral and liquidity management.
The focus on settlement reflects a broader effort within financial services to reduce the time and operational complexity involved in moving money and assets.
Traditional financial transactions can involve multiple parties, systems and processes. Tokenised infrastructure could allow some of these processes to operate on shared digital infrastructure, potentially enabling transactions to be completed more quickly.
Lloyds said tokenisation could also allow transactions to be processed automatically when predetermined conditions are met. This type of programmability could potentially simplify parts of financial operations and reduce the resources required to coordinate transactions.
The practical significance is particularly relevant for financial institutions managing large amounts of collateral and liquidity. If assets and payments can move more efficiently, capital that is temporarily tied up in transaction processes could potentially be redeployed.
However, the survey findings should be understood as the expectations of respondents rather than evidence that these benefits have already been achieved across the UK financial system.
How much are UK financial institutions increasing technology investment?
The Lloyds survey also points to a broader acceleration in investment in emerging technologies.
Lloyds reported that 77% of institutions now identify investment in new and emerging technologies as a growth priority, compared with 41% in the previous year’s survey. The increase represents a substantial rise in the proportion of respondents treating emerging technology investment as strategically important.
The survey also found that 64% of respondents expect to increase capital expenditure over the following 12 months.
This wider investment trend is important because tokenisation is not an isolated technology. Its potential implementation depends on financial institutions having the underlying digital infrastructure, systems integration, data capabilities and operational controls required to connect new blockchain-based processes with existing financial systems.
Lloyds’ separate 2026 Financial Institutions Sentiment Survey material also highlights investment in AI, data infrastructure and the UK’s position as a global financial-services hub as major themes affecting the sector.
The survey therefore places tokenisation within a broader programme of technology and infrastructure investment rather than presenting it as a standalone development.
What did Lisa Francis say about the future of tokenisation?
Lisa Francis, Global Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking Coverage at Lloyds, said the financial sector had spent years modernising the way customers interact with financial services, but that attention was increasingly moving towards the infrastructure underneath those services.
In the Lloyds announcement, Francis said tokenisation was part of that shift, with organisations exploring ways to transact in a trusted environment while improving efficiency, capital utilisation and the ability to develop new products and services.
Her comments place the technology within a broader evolution of financial-market infrastructure.
The emphasis is therefore not solely on creating digital versions of existing assets. It is also on changing the infrastructure through which financial assets are transferred, settled and managed.
That distinction matters because the potential economic impact of tokenisation depends on whether individual applications can eventually connect with one another.
What did Rob Hale say about financial-market infrastructure?
Rob Hale, Co-Head of Global Markets at Lloyds, focused on the potential for financial markets to operate more quickly and efficiently.
Hale said the opportunity included faster settlement, more efficient use of collateral and improved movement of liquidity. He also stressed that the next stage would involve turning individual tokenisation use cases into infrastructure capable of operating at scale.
Hale also highlighted interoperability and common standards as important requirements for connecting digital and traditional markets.
This is a central issue for tokenisation. Financial institutions may develop different blockchain networks, tokenised assets and digital payment mechanisms. Without compatible standards, separate systems could remain isolated even if each individual system operates efficiently.
The challenge therefore extends beyond creating tokenised assets. Institutions also need mechanisms that allow digital money, securities, collateral and traditional financial infrastructure to interact reliably.
How is Lloyds already testing tokenised financial assets?
Lloyds has already conducted practical experiments involving tokenised assets.
According to Lloyds Banking Group, the bank worked with digital-asset company Archax and the Canton Network on a public blockchain transaction involving tokenised deposits and a tokenised gilt. Lloyds described the transaction as the UK’s first public blockchain transaction using tokenised deposits to purchase a tokenised gilt.
A Lloyds release about the transaction said the bank also operated its own validator node on the Canton Network. The bank presented the exercise as part of its work to examine how tokenised deposits and tokenised securities could support faster settlement and more efficient movement of collateral and liquidity.
Surath Sengupta, Head of Transaction Banking Products at Lloyds, said the transaction demonstrated how real-world assets could be brought onto blockchain infrastructure while tokenised deposits could continue to provide characteristics associated with traditional bank deposits.
Archax chief executive and co-founder Graham Rodford also said the transaction demonstrated potential institutional applications for tokenised real-world assets, particularly around settlement and transparency.
These activities provide a practical example of the type of infrastructure development referenced in the latest Lloyds survey.
What wider developments are taking place among UK banks?
The Lloyds survey has been published against a backdrop of wider tokenised-deposit experiments involving major UK banks.
Reuters reported in September 2026 that Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays had completed two mortgage-related transactions using tokenised deposits, while a separate group of banks including HSBC participated in a simulated person-to-person transaction designed to demonstrate programmable payments.
The transactions formed part of the Great British Tokenised Deposit project run by UK Finance.
Reuters reported that the mortgage transactions involved tokenised deposits and that funds could be released automatically when the relevant property transaction was completed. The simulated online purchase was designed to demonstrate how programmable deposits could reserve funds and release them after specified conditions were met.
UK Finance managing director for Payments and Innovation Jana Mackintosh said the programmable-payment test demonstrated potential applications for reducing fraud risk, while noting that the online purchase was simulated rather than a real commercial transaction.
The project is also expected to move towards a more formal production framework. Reuters reported that participating banks planned to establish a company and develop rules and governance arrangements, with three digital bonds planned for issuance in the first quarter of 2027.
What does tokenisation mean for UK financial infrastructure?
Tokenisation could affect several layers of financial-market infrastructure, including payments, securities settlement, collateral management and liquidity operations.
For banks and other financial institutions, the potential attraction lies in reducing the number of separate processes required to complete a transaction.
Lloyds’ survey suggests that faster settlement is currently the most prominent expected benefit among respondents, while collateral and liquidity management is another important area.
The technology could also enable transactions to be programmed around specific conditions. In principle, this could connect the movement of money and assets more closely to the completion of contractual or operational requirements.
However, these potential applications require appropriate technical standards, governance, risk controls and legal frameworks before they can become widely used.
The emphasis on interoperability from Lloyds executives is therefore particularly relevant. Digital financial infrastructure cannot operate effectively at scale if different networks and asset systems cannot communicate with one another.
Does the Lloyds survey prove that tokenisation will transform financial services?
The survey demonstrates strong expectations among the executives who participated, but it does not establish that tokenisation has already transformed the UK financial system.
The sample consisted of 100 senior decision-makers, and the research measures their expectations and priorities. The 71% figure therefore should not be interpreted as a measurement of the proportion of all UK financial institutions that have deployed tokenisation.
Similarly, the 60% figure for faster settlement represents respondents’ identification of a potential benefit rather than a measurement of actual settlement-time reductions across the market.
This distinction is important as financial institutions continue to test tokenised deposits, tokenised securities and blockchain-based settlement mechanisms.
The recent UK banking experiments provide evidence that institutions are conducting practical trials, but the transition from pilots to large-scale production infrastructure remains a separate step.
What could happen next for tokenisation in UK finance?
The next stage is likely to focus on whether individual tokenisation initiatives can operate together as part of a wider financial ecosystem.
Lloyds has highlighted interoperability and common standards as requirements for connecting digital and traditional markets. The Great British Tokenised Deposit project is also moving towards a formal governance and production framework, while participating banks have indicated plans for further digital-bond activity.
For financial institutions, this means that the commercial question is increasingly moving beyond whether blockchain technology can support an individual transaction.
The more significant issue is whether tokenised money and assets can be integrated into existing banking, payments, securities and risk-management systems while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
The Lloyds survey indicates that senior industry leaders are placing greater strategic attention on these questions. With 77% identifying emerging-technology investment as a growth priority and 64% planning higher capital expenditure, the survey points to a broader technology-investment cycle across UK financial services.
For professionals working across Accounting Finance and Budgeting, understanding how digital settlement, liquidity management and emerging financial infrastructure affect corporate financial operations is becoming increasingly relevant as financial institutions examine new technology-enabled processes.
Overall, Lloyds’ latest survey provides a measure of industry sentiment at a time when UK banks are moving from discussions about tokenisation towards practical trials. The 71% figure indicates substantial expectations among the surveyed institutions, while the recent blockchain and tokenised-deposit transactions show that some applications are already being tested. The extent to which these experiments develop into interoperable, production-scale infrastructure will depend on technology standards, governance, commercial viability and the ability of digital systems to work alongside established financial markets.