Digital assets have the potential to effect sweeping changes on U.K. financial markets, according to Lucy Rigby, Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
Speaking at the Financial Times Digital Assets Summit, Rigby said that digital assets offer benefits including “efficiencies generally, but also just everything happening much more speedily.” She added that it’s important to consider “what that actually means for business,” including quicker capital flows and “capital being freed up for other things.”
More broadly, Rigby argued, digital assets have “the potential for complete transformation of our markets, and that goes beyond efficiencies,” noting that the Treasury has to “work very closely with industry, with regulators, and give some proper thought to exactly how digital assets do transform our financial markets.”
The Economic Secretary also pointed to the need to “minimize frictions” between the U.K. and U.S. regulatory regimes for digital assets, adding that it “may well take the form of some forms of recognition or alignment.”
Rigby added that digital assets are set to be a feature of the U.K.’s financial landscape, saying, “I'm pretty clear that's what the future looks like. Given that, she added, “we need to embrace those forms of innovation, and we need to be doing it in the right way.”
