(23 June 2026 – United Kingdom) The Bank of England (BoE) has reduced reserve requirements and relaxed stablecoin holding limits to encourage broad based GBP stablecoin adoption.
The BoE has walked away from its proposal to cap individual and corporate holdings of British regulated stablecoins, replacing it with a GBP40 billion issuance threshold. The central bank has also reduced the proportion of reserve assets that must be held in non-interest-bearing deposits at the central bank.
The United Kingdom (UK) is facing mounting pressure to remain competitive as USD stablecoins continue to scale globally across payments, trading, and settlement. USD stablecoins benefit from US Dollar hegemony, deep dollar liquidity and widespread use across commodity markets, cross border payments, capital markets, crypto trading and as a reserve currency.
Alongside other innovations in money and payments, stablecoins could enable faster, cheaper and more flexible services for users, including cross‑border use cases, while supporting new programmable functionality. Industry advocates have campaigned against holding caps and reserve restrictions because they significantly limit the viability of GBP stablecoins.
Under the revised framework individual holding limits of GBP20,000 per stablecoin have been removed, corporate holding limits of GBP10 million have been removed and the share of reserves required to be held in non-interest-bearing BoE deposits has been reduced from 40 percent to 30 percent.
“This is a major milestone in delivering greater choice and innovation in UK payments. Innovation thrives on trust. And today we’ve set out the foundations of that trust for a new form of money – with prompt redemption, strong protections and central bank support. This is truly a world leading regime” commented BoE Deputy Governor for Financial Stability, Sarah Breeden.
