London Stock Exchange to launch UK tokenised equity structures and announces partnership with Payward to explore tokenised public equity markets

London Stock Exchange today announces plans to launch UK tokenised equity structures and forms a partnership with Payward, a unified financial infrastructure platform advancing an open global financial system, to explore how regulated market infrastructure and digital-native distribution can support the next stage of tokenised public equity markets. The London Stock Exchange is assessing a UK tokenised equity structure designed to broaden access to capital markets whilst preserving the shareholder rights, protections and governance standards that underpin public markets today. The work will consider how LSEG’s Digital Securities Depository (LSEG DSD) could support settlement and asset servicing, subject to regulatory approval. The initiative forms part of LSEG's broader work to modernise market infrastructure and support the digitalisation of capital markets through initiatives including LSE 24, LSEG’s recently announced 24-hour trading venue, the LSEG DSD and Digital Settlement House (LSEG DiSH). By combining trusted market infrastructure with emerging digital technologies, the London Stock Exchange aims to help create a rights-preserving model for tokenised public equities that expands investor access, supports issuers seeking innovative routes to market and greater insight, and enables the efficient movement of assets across increasingly digital financial markets seeking to minimise isolated pools of liquidity. The London Stock Exchange’s partnership with Payward will focus on exploring how digital-native access, wallet-based interaction and partner infrastructure could connect with LSEG’s regulated market ecosystem to facilitate seamless connectivity between tokenised and traditional infrastructure. Together, the two firms will explore opportunities to connect regulated capital markets with on-chain ecosystems, building a route for issuers and investors to make greater use of private and public blockchains, where relevant regulatory obligations, including AML and operational resilience, can continue to be met. Separately, as part of this collaboration and, subject to regulatory approval, in 2027 the London Stock Exchange intends to list xStocks [Note 1] and start trading them on LSE 24. Julia Hoggett, CEO of LSE plc and Head of Digital and Securities Markets, LSEG, said: “Tokenisation has the potential to change how investors access, and how issuers use, financial markets, but it must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets. By working with Payward, and continuing to collaborate across the market infrastructure ecosystem, we are exploring how issuers and investors can benefit from new forms of access while maintaining the standards that underpin public markets.” Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward said: "For years the assumption was that crypto and traditional finance were on a collision course, and one of them would have to lose. That was never the real story. The real opportunity is what happens when they run on the same rails. Tokenisation hasn't just widened who can reach a market, it changes how the market itself works, how shares are issued, how they trade, how they settle, and how freely they move once they do. Bringing London-listed companies onchain as xStocks is the start of that, demonstrating how investors can access public markets in new ways. An equity that can trade around the clock, reach an investor almost anywhere, and still carry the price integrity of the underlying starts to show what becomes possible when securities move onto blockchain rails. The next step is connecting those new forms of access with trusted market infrastructure. Doing this with an institution the calibre of the London Stock Exchange is what turns that vision from an idea into lasting market infrastructure." Notes to editors Digital Securities Depository (DSD) is LSEG’s digital settlement and servicing infrastructure for tokenised securities. It is being developed to support the issuance, recording, transfer, asset servicing and settlement of digital securities within a regulated infrastructure model. Digital Settlement House (DiSH) is LSEG’s open-access platform which enables programmatic and instantaneous settlement between independent payment networks, both on and off chain. Through commercial bank deposits held on the DiSH ledger (DiSH Cash), the service enables the 24/7 instantaneous movement of commercial bank money in multiple currencies and jurisdictions, PVP and DVP, providing a real cash leg for FX and digital asset transactions and settlements. [1] xStocks are 1:1 backed tokenised representations of publicly traded shares. They track the performance of the underlying security while adding the speed, programmability, and around-the-clock access of blockchain. xStocks can move between centralized exchanges, self-custodied wallets, and onchain applications, giving holders utility that a share sitting in a traditional brokerage account cannot currently offer. | Back to Note 1

London Stock Exchange to launch UK tokenised equity structures and announces partnership with Payward to explore tokenised public equity markets

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