On July 14, 2026, HM Treasury and the US Department of the Treasury published a ten-point roadmap for closer cooperation across digital assets and capital markets. The recommendations include cross-border tokenization pilots, common approaches to the regulatory treatment of tokenized assets and closer alignment on stablecoin regulation.
These recommendations signal the direction of travel: tokenized assets are becoming part of mainstream financial market infrastructure. As traditional securities, tokenized securities and other digital assets increasingly intersect, firms need controls that follow the underlying exposure across every format, platform and account.
Key Highlights
- The US and UK plan to encourage cross-border testing of tokenized assets and identify common approaches to areas including settlement and collateral.
- A separate joint statement supports the use of well-regulated stablecoins in payments, settlement and tokenized financial markets.
- Regulatory alignment eases cross-border complexity, but it does not change the underlying compliance risk profile — conflicts of interest, insider information, market abuse and personal trading exposure remain regardless of format.
- Firms need a consistent approach to compliance controls across traditional securities and tokenized equivalents.
The recommendations were developed by the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, established by HM Treasury and the US Treasury.
The areas identified include settlement finality for tokenized securities and the potential use of stablecoins and tokenized money market funds as margin collateral. The roadmap also supports the coexistence of stablecoins, tokenized deposits and other forms of digital money.
Five focus specifically on digital assets:
- Establish a private sector-led group to test cross-border uses for tokenized assets and share best practices.
- Identify common regulatory approaches to tokenized assets, including settlement finality and the use of stablecoins and tokenized money market funds as collateral.
- Promote greater alignment between UK and US stablecoin regimes.
- Support the coexistence of stablecoins, tokenized deposits and other forms of digital money.
- Coordinate on the prudential treatment of cryptoassets through the
.
The US and UK intend to engage a private sector-led group to test cross-border uses for tokenized assets and share best practices. Regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Bank of England, will also seek common approaches to their regulatory treatment.
Alongside the roadmap, the two governments issued a joint statement on stablecoins. It supports the integration of well-regulated stablecoins into payments, settlement and tokenized financial markets, including their use as settlement instruments in securities and commodities markets.
The statement sets out shared principles rather than a single regime. These include one-to-one backing by high-quality liquid assets, safeguards for reserves, timely redemption and clear legal rights for holders. The two countries will also explore pathways that could allow stablecoins issued in one jurisdiction to access the other.
Greater regulatory alignment should help reduce complexity across jurisdictions, but it will not remove the operational challenge of monitoring assets that trade across exchanges, wallets, blockchains and traditional brokerage accounts.
The compliance risks do not change simply because the asset sits on a blockchain. Conflicts of interest, insider information, market abuse and personal trading risks exist regardless of whether an instrument is issued in a traditional format or as a tokenized asset.
The difference is how that exposure may be identified, traded and held. A security and its tokenized equivalent may use different identifiers, venues and data sources. Employees may gain exposure through brokerage accounts, digital asset platforms or self-custody wallets. Controls that look at each channel in isolation may capture only part of the picture.
Learn more about the challenges of digital asset compliance and how MCO helps firms manage employee personal trading, MNPI and Insider Risk, and Outside Business Activities.
Waiting for every aspect of the regulatory framework to be finalized is not a strategy. Firms should be reviewing whether existing policies, restricted lists and employee trading controls adequately capture the digital channels through which exposure can now be obtained.
Three areas deserve particular attention:
- Policies and account definitions. Confirm that policies clearly address tokenized securities, relevant digital asset platforms and wallets, rather than referring only to conventional brokerage accounts.
- Restricted-list coverage. If a restriction applies to an issuer, it should apply across all forms of exposure to that issuer, including traditional securities and tokenized equivalents, regardless of how they are identified, traded or held.
- Monitoring and data. Assess whether existing data feeds and disclosure processes provide sufficient visibility across exchanges, digital asset platforms, blockchains and wallets.
This is precisely the problem MCO was built to solve: applying consistent employee-trading, conflicts and restricted-list controls across traditional securities, cryptocurrencies and other digital assets on a single platform — so compliance teams get one consolidated view of employee activity across asset classes rather than a patchwork of systems that each see only part of the picture.
Digital Asset Personal Trading provides automated wallet discovery, on-chain activity capture and multi-chain aggregation alongside existing employee compliance controls.
Ready to learn more? Request a demo today to see how MCO can help your firm stay ahead of crypto and digital asset compliance obligations.
This post was written by John Kearney, Head of Product for Employee Conflicts of Interest at MCO.
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