The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority published a call for input on Monday, September 14, 2026, seeking industry views on how tokenized gold could be used in wholesale financial markets, including its potential role as collateral.

In its call for input on tokenized gold, the FCA is examining opportunities and risks around representing gold through digital tokens and whether existing regulation provides enough clarity for wholesale-market use.

The work does not make tokenized gold eligible collateral or establish a new regulatory regime. Instead, it forms part of a wider UK effort to determine how tokenized assets can operate within existing financial-market infrastructure, an approach that sits alongside broader questions covered in a comparison of UK versus U.S. stablecoin regulation.

Why Tokenized Gold Could Become Wholesale Collateral

The FCA’s interest in gold builds on work already underway with the Bank of England. In May, the FCA and Bank published a broader call for input on tokenization, identifying collateral as one of the areas where market participants want greater regulatory certainty.

The authorities specifically said the FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority were reviewing collateral eligibility while recognising potential benefits from using tokenized money market funds and tokenized gold as collateral for uncleared over-the-counter derivatives.

Table 1. Main issues surrounding tokenized gold in UK wholesale markets.

The Bank is separately considering how tokenized versions of assets already accepted as regulatory collateral could remain eligible when represented digitally, provided the risks created by tokenization are appropriately controlled. 

That is an important distinction: tokenization does not automatically make an asset eligible as collateral simply because it has been placed on a distributed ledger.

Why the Token’s Legal Rights to Gold Still Matter Most

One of the central questions is what ownership or claim a token gives its holder. Tokenized gold structures can differ. The World Gold Council defines tokenized gold as a digital token whose value is linked to gold, with issuance, transfer and redemption managed through blockchain or similar infrastructure. Legal structures and redemption rights can vary between products.

For wholesale collateral, those differences matter. A financial institution accepting tokenized gold would need to understand the rights attached to the token, how the underlying bullion is held and what happens if the token issuer, custodian or counterparty fails. Those issues become particularly important if the asset is expected to function as collateral that can be transferred or liquidated following a default.

How This Fits the UK’s Broader Tokenization Push

The gold work sits within a broader UK push to bring distributed ledger technology into wholesale finance, part of the same regulatory momentum discussed in a breakdown of how the Clarity Act could affect tokenized assets in other jurisdictions. 

The FCA and Bank of England said in May that tokenization could make issuing securities, managing assets and settlement more efficient, while acknowledging that firms need greater certainty around regulation and infrastructure.

Sixteen firms had passed the first stage of the Digital Securities Sandbox at the time of that announcement and were working toward live issuance and settlement of tokenized assets. 

The Bank is also examining collateral treatment more broadly, with a policy preference for tokenized versions of assets already accepted as regulatory collateral to remain eligible when the legal rights and underlying risks are comparable and the tokenization arrangements are appropriately controlled. 

The FCA and Bank plan to publish a wider cross-authority roadmap for digital wholesale markets later in 2026.

What the FCA Still Needs to Determine

Responses to the FCA’s tokenized gold call for input will help determine whether existing regulation provides enough certainty or whether additional rules or guidance are needed.

The regulator still needs to determine how tokenized gold should fit within the UK’s wholesale regulatory framework and what standards would be necessary before institutions could use it more widely. Any move toward collateral use would also need to address the legal rights attached to the token and the risks introduced by the tokenization structure.

What this means for you: the FCA is exploring tokenized gold as part of the UK’s wider move toward digital wholesale markets, but it has not approved tokenized gold as collateral or created a dedicated regime for it. The key question is whether digital gold can provide institutions with sufficiently clear and reliable rights to the underlying bullion to function within existing financial-market rules.

This is not financial advice. Tokenized gold can involve market, custody, counterparty, technology, liquidity and regulatory risks. The FCA’s call for input does not constitute approval of any tokenized gold product.