InMarketing Today

A Sibos panel on the fight for the settlement layer, reported by Finextra today, put central bankers and a stablecoin infrastructure founder on one stage. Andrea Maechler, deputy general manager at the Bank for International Settlements, said settlement needs to be "unconditional, irrevocable, final". Alberto Naudon, deputy governor of the Bank of Chile, put it plainly: "Money is not technology, money is institutions". Tony McLaughlin, chief executive of Ubyx, argued that central and commercial banks tokenising money only on private permissioned ledgers leave businesses on public blockchains with "no alternative but to use unregulated money", which he called "a market failure".

The panel argued about monetary sovereignty, but the lessons are about positioning. Maechler's "singleness of money" is a brand promise: nobody checks which bank issued the money in their hand, and that indifference is what trust looks like at scale. Naudon added that people turn to stablecoins for an account outside their country, not for the blockchain, so customers buy the outcome rather than the technology. McLaughlin's warning is about distribution: regulated money available only where its issuers prefer to host it leaves the demand to unregulated rivals.

If you are bringing a tokenised product to market, describe what it guarantees, meaning finality, redemption and who stands behind it, before you describe how it works. Then find out where your clients already want to transact before you decide where to build. A compliant product they cannot easily reach is a positioning failure.

From today, crypto firms can apply to the Financial Conduct Authority for authorisation, and for the first time firms operating in the UK will come under full regulation. The standards cover consumer protection, safeguarding, market integrity and financial resilience. Firms that intend to keep operating in the UK should apply by the end of February 2027, ahead of the regime coming into force in October 2027. Authorisation is not automatic: applicants that cannot show the required standards will not be authorised. Dominic Cashman, the regulator's director of authorisation, said firms "can now apply for authorisation and start preparing for regulation".

The regulator is also making a marketing pitch. The UK, it says, aims to be "one of the most trusted places in the world" to build and invest in crypto businesses, which turns authorisation from a compliance chore into a credential. Once the regime is live, being authorised is a claim customers can check and unauthorised rivals cannot make. Firms whose brands lean on speed and novelty will need a second string: proof.

Treat your authorisation story as a communications project, not only a legal filing. Decide now what you will tell customers, partners and banks at each stage, and hold back any wording that implies approval before it is granted. If you bank, insure or partner with crypto businesses, ask each one where it stands in the process, because authorisation status will soon be part of your own reputation.

Parties across the spectrum now want more of the UK's £395bn of public procurement spending to go to British companies, Joe Hill of the Re:State think tank writes in City AM today. His argument is that mandates miss the point, because too few British firms want to bid: one study he cites found a single bidder in about 20% of tenders. Startups face months-long tenders against detailed specifications, small-business set-asides dry up once a firm grows, and social value commitments add cost.

It is a demand-side problem presented as a patriotism problem. Hill opens with the 1968 "I'm Backing Britain" campaign, which had fizzled by the summer, undermined in part by news that its T-shirts were made in Portugal: a slogan contradicted by the supply chain behind it. The same logic applies to any buyer. A call to buy local means little if the buying process repels the suppliers you want, and the best suppliers judge you on that process before they ever meet you. Hill's think tank has published its own draft remedy, so read the prescription as advocacy; the single-bidder figure is the evidence.

Assess your own supplier experience as a startup would. Measure how long onboarding takes, how detailed the specification is and how many invited firms decline to respond. If you say you want to work with innovative fintechs, publish a plain-English guide to how, name one contact and shorten the process for smaller suppliers. Track declined invitations as carefully as you track wins.