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31 October 2026 · Naimint team · 4 min read

UK banks' first live tokenised sterling deposits

In September 2026, seven UK banks completed the first live customer transactions using tokenised sterling deposits, including remortgages where money was released automatically at completion. Here's what the GBTD initiative did, and what it shows about programmable bank money.

The Great British Tokenised Deposit (GBTD) initiative, convened by UK Finance, completed the first live customer transactions using tokenised sterling deposits, announced on 24 September 2026. The banks taking part are Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander. The live pilots included two remortgage completions and a consumer marketplace purchase, each using programmable tokenised deposits that released money only when agreed conditions were met.

This post summarises what UK Finance has published, as of 31 October 2026. Each fact links to its source.

What is GBTD?

UK Finance describes tokenised deposits as "digital representations of traditional commercial bank money" that "retain the trust and regulatory protections of conventional deposits", according to its GBTD initiative page.

  • Who: seven UK banks, convened by UK Finance. Six launched the pilot in September 2025; Monzo joined as the seventh in January 2026.
  • Platform: the transactions ran on the GBTD platform, which UK Finance says was developed by Quant as shared UK industry infrastructure for tokenised commercial bank money.
  • Support: EY provided project management, and Linklaters developed the legal advice and rulebooks.

How did the pilot start?

UK Finance launched the live pilot phase on 26 September 2025, building on earlier phases of the UK Regulated Liability Network project. It set out three use cases:

  1. Person-to-person payments through online marketplaces.
  2. Remortgaging.
  3. Settlement of digital assets.

The pilot was planned to run until mid-2026.

What did the live transactions do?

According to UK Finance's September 2026 announcement:

  • Two remortgage completions. Deposit funds were "locked" and then released automatically at completion, reducing manual checks and settlement delays. UK Finance notes that customers can keep earning interest on the funds in their accounts until completion. The pilots also explored connecting digitally with HM Land Registry.
  • A marketplace purchase. A consumer bought an item from a private seller in a typical online marketplace setting. The money was locked in the buyer's account and released only once the goods had been exchanged.

The announcement doesn't publish transaction values or say which bank handled each transaction.

Why do these use cases matter?

All three transactions show the same idea: money that moves only when a condition is met, while staying a bank deposit until then.

  • In a remortgage, the condition is completion. The funds stay in the customer's account, still earning interest, rather than moving early through several hands.
  • In a marketplace sale, the condition is the exchange of goods. Neither side has to trust the other to go first.

That is the practical meaning of "programmable" here. It isn't new money. It's ordinary bank money with conditions attached, settled on shared infrastructure.

What happens next?

UK Finance says further pilots using the GBTD platform are expected "over the next few months" to demonstrate settlement of digital assets. Participating banks will issue digital debt instruments that can be traded and settled, with coupons paid in tokenised deposits, enabling delivery-versus-payment-versus-reserves (DvPvR).

GBTD was also accepted into the Bank of England's Synchronisation Lab in early 2026, according to the GBTD initiative page. In the announcement, UK Finance says the pilots complement the work of the Bank of England, HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Payment Systems Regulator on the future of retail payments.

What does this mean for other banks?

GBTD shows tokenised deposits working with real customers, inside existing banks, for everyday transactions. The design choices behind it are the ones any bank has to get right:

  • The deposit stays a deposit. Funds remain in the customer's account and on the bank's books until the condition is met.
  • Conditions are enforced by the system, not by paperwork. That's what removes the manual checks.
  • Shared infrastructure matters. Tokenised deposits are most useful when they can move between banks on a common platform.

Naimint is software for licensed banks: the orchestration layer between a bank's core banking system and tokenised deposit networks, deployed in the bank's own cloud. The core ledger leads, the bank's own HSM signs, and every token stays backed and reconciled. Naimint is not part of the GBTD initiative. Read what a tokenised deposit is, or see how a mint works, step by step.

Sources