The Bank of England published a policy statement and draft Code of Practice for systemic sterling-denominated stablecoin issuers on Monday, replacing previously proposed holding limits with a temporary £40 billion ($52.9 billion) issuance guardrail for each stablecoin.
The BoE defines systemic sterling stablecoins as tokens used widely in payments that could pose risks to UK financial stability or undermine confidence in the financial system if disrupted. Stablecoins not designated as systemic and used mainly for crypto asset transactions, like USDT and USDC, will remain under the sole supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority, the central bank said in the policy statement.
According to the statement, the BoE revised its proposed backing asset composition to allow issuers to hold 70% of backing assets in short-term UK government debt with residual maturity of up to six months, up from 60% proposed in November 2025. The remaining 30% must be held as unremunerated deposits at the bank, down from the 40% requirement in the earlier proposal.
The central bank also said issuers must hold capital equal to the higher of six months of operating expenses or the cost of recovery and orderly wind-down planning, while maintaining reserve assets in trust structures designed to protect coin holders in both normal operation and failure scenarios.
