Revolut has been chosen as one of the first fintechs to test a stablecoin pegged to the British pound in a trial that will inform the FCA’s regulatory approach to the digital currency.
Alongside Revolut, the regulator selected stablecoin infrastructure platform Monee Financial Technologies, issuance platform ReStabilise, and blockchain infrastructure firm VVTX, to take part in its stablecoin Regulatory Sandbox programme.
This will allow these four firms to trial their stablecoin products in real-world conditions, with initial testing beginning next month, primarily focused on stablecoin issuance.
The FCA said these firms represent a broad range of use cases, from payments and wholesale settlement to crypto‑asset trading, and that each will receive input from FCA specialists as they contribute to shaping the UK’s final stablecoin rules later in 2026.
“We are supporting UK stablecoin issuers to ensure they can be trusted for payments, settlement and trading. It will benefit consumers and financial transactions and help to deliver the FCA’s strategy and the Government’s National Payments Vision,” said Matthew Long, director of payments and digital assets at the FCA.
While Revolut is a household name and one of Europe’s most valuable fintechs, reportedly mulling another share sale that could lift its valuation toward $100 billion, the FCA’s choice of three much smaller firms highlights a cautious approach among the UK’s big lenders to stablecoins.
UK banks have held back on stablecoin development largely due to conditions put in place by the Bank of England in its role as the UK’s chief guardian of financial stability.
In November, the central bank proposed a far more restrictive regime for “systemic” stablecoins, including prescriptive backing-asset rules, strict holding limits of £20,000 for individuals, and tight redemption procedures that would force banks to exchange stablecoins for sterling by the end of the day.
Although Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said last year that he was “not against stablecoins”, and later told The Times that his preference would be for banks to prioritise tokenised deposits, a stance that has since driven a live tokenisation pilot spanning Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest and Nationwide.
The FCA, on the other hand, is keen to see stablecoins enter the mainstream, with this regulatory sandbox the first step in a plan outlined by the FCA’s chief executive, Nikhil Rathi, to the prime minister.
Stablecoins are just one strand of the FCA’s plan to modernise the UK’s financial services industry, but it is an important one if the country hopes to keep up in the evolution of digital currency. According to DefiLlama data, the collective value of sterling-backed stablecoins is currently worth just under $5 million, while US dollar-denominated stablecoins currently have a combined value of over $307 billion, with the top US tokens, Tether and Circle, exceeding $183 billion alone.
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