UK Treasury taps six banks as joint lead managers for digital gilt pilot

The UK government has picked the banks that will steer its first digital government bond. The finance ministry named Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, and RBC Capital Markets as joint lead managers for the digital gilt. The appointments move the Digital Gilt Instrument, known as DIGIT, from a policy idea toward a real transaction. The government is targeting issuance by the end of Q1 2027. What the banks are signing up for Gilts are the bonds the UK government sells to borrow money. They are the British equivalent of US Treasuries: the plumbing that pension funds, insurers, and banks rely on daily. The selection followed an Expression of Interest procurement for lead manager services, published on March 24, 2026. Interested firms had until March 31, 2026, to respond. The contracts run from June 1, 2026, until May 2027, with a potential extension. HSBC appears twice on the roster. Beyond its lead manager role, the bank was appointed on February 12, 2026, as platform provider for the pilot after a competitive tender. The bond will run on HSBC’s Orion platform, a distributed ledger system. Think of a distributed ledger as a shared record book that all authorized partici...