United Kingdom: Introduced Financial Services and Markets Bill including stablecoin regulation

On 20 July 2022, the Financial Services and Markets Bill, including updated regulation of digital means of payment, was introduced in the UK Parliament. The Bill gives the Treasury expanded powers to regulate the use of digital settlement assets (DSAs), defined as a digital representation of value which can be used as payment, is traded and stored digitally, and may or may not use distributed ledger technology. The Bill would give the Treasury further regulatory power over DSAs, for example, by issuing recognition orders for certain DSA service providers, thereby bringing them under the Bank of England's regulatory oversight, and by regulating DSA service providers more generally.