Who Regulates What: Bank of England, HM Treasury and the FCA in the Tokenised Asset Landscape

The UK regulatory landscape divides responsibilities across institutions. The Bank of England focuses on monetary stability and the resilience of systemically important infrastructure; where tokenisation affects settlement, central infrastructure or market functioning, the Bank assesses systemic risk and works on operational resilience and market infrastructure standards. HM Treasury sets the legislative framework and policy priorities for financial markets, deciding on primary law and statutory powers that underpin regulation for new market structures. The FCA is responsible for conduct, authorisation of financial services firms, consumer protection, and supervision of market integrity and disclosure where instruments fall within its perimeter. Coordination between authorities is routine for novel market segments. Memoranda of understanding and cross‑agency working groups align prudential considerations, conduct rules and policy development. For example, prudential regulators examine whether entities should be supervised for capital and operational resilience, while the FCA focuses on investor disclosures and the perimeter of regulation. This separation means that retail protections (clear communication, suitability, complaint handling) are primarily FCA concerns, while system‑level resilience and interconnections receive scrutiny from the Bank and Treasury. For retail investors, the practical implication is to understand which protections apply to a given product: consumer disclosure and conduct standards under the FCA; prudential safeguards for banks and central counterparties under the Bank of England; and the statutory framework from HM Treasury. When evaluating fractional, tokenised offers, investors should check which regulator authorises the firm and which rules — consumer protections, prudential supervision or market infrastructure standards — apply to the product.