Digital Securities Sandbox: Sasha Mills Speech Maps Five Bank of England Digital Asset Commitments

Five commitments sit at the center of the Bank of England approach to digital assets. The October 1 2026 speech by Sasha Mills titled New horizons: the legal and commercial frontier of digital assets spells out how the central bank plans to back responsible growth without loosening its guard on stability.

Core message on innovation

Mills states that the real questions have moved past pure technology. Trusted ownership records, settlement finality, insolvency handling, accountability lines, and the exact reach of rules now drive the work. The speech was delivered at the Hogan Lovells and Global Digital Finance Digital Assets Summit and published the same day on the Bank site.

Five commitments laid out

The Bank will apply an outcomes-based rule that delivers the same result for the same risk. It will back experiments and scaling steps. It will push clearer processes for firms. It will support the Wholesale Digital Markets Champion and the wider government wholesale digital plan. It will coordinate with UK and overseas regulators to cut fragmentation.

Digital Securities Sandbox update

The sandbox now treats stablecoins as possible settlement assets when they meet minimum standards and pass case-by-case checks. Real trades with real customers stay inside set limits. The move widens the tools available inside the sandbox while the Bank keeps central bank money as the final risk-free settlement layer.

DIGIT and future synchronisation

A digitally native government bond called the Digital Gilt Instrument already sits inside the sandbox. It serves as a test bed for issuance, ownership, trading, settlement, custody, and collateral use. The Bank aims for live synchronisation of digital assets with central bank money in 2028. Its Synchronisation Lab is running use-case tests now.

Next steps on the roadmap

A May call for input on tokenisation was issued together with the FCA. A full roadmap is due later in 2026. The speech sets direction and does not create new rules or grant authorisations. Firms still face the same case-by-case reviews that apply today.

The Bank keeps its focus on stability while opening controlled space for digital asset rails. The five commitments and the updated sandbox rules give market participants a clearer calendar for the next two years.